Our first city-based Xmas 5-Days carnival wrapped up with an ultra sprint right outside the Sydney Cricket Ground to great acclaim from elites and amateurs alike.
The setting - among magnificent fig trees (see pic, left), around Kippax Lake, and a stone's throw from so much sporting history - was a fitting end to 5 days of urban O.
Ultra Sprint is a new form of orienteering, much like cricket's Twenty20 - fast, furious and finished quickly.
Participants had to complete short line courses of about 1km, in any order, inside the two-hour window (8-10am). The maps were drawn at 1:2000 with every tree shown and its canopy covering. Controls could be either side of a tree or fence post or log, and each wrongly punched control brought a 30-second penalty instead of the dreaded 'mp'.
"It's the first time I have done this and it's fantastic," said Christian Tingström of Sweden, who won the Big Foot Sprints a week ago at St Ives Showground. Today he finished four seconds behind Josh Blatchford (NC) who completed the 3 courses in 17m52s.
"I am an orienteer, not a runner, so I love how you have to concentrate very hard on the map in an area that looks very easy. And all the dummy controls (from the other courses); it's like Trail O and quite tricky. It's a really good training activity, too. I loved it."
In Women's A, Swedish World Cup champs and six-time world championship silver medallist Tove Alexandersson won by a massive two and a half minutes today to easily take out the overall title.
The standout feature of the ultra sprint is the maze (see pic, left) in the middle of the map. Each course had 3-4 controls inside the maze, which was also magnified as a map inset. You can see a two-minute video of the maze in action.
Around 100 Sydneysiders had a test run of the ultra sprint at Callan Park in November, so had an inkling of what lay ahead. Behind the scenes it was a mountain of work for setter Matt Peters, SI guru Ron Pallas and the host club Uringa - triple the work of a normal event. UR awesome !
Click on the blue links for Day 5 maps from the Hard 1 course (Leg 2 and Leg 3), results, splits, the final carnival standings (your best 4 results counted) and the ONSW album of Facebook photos.
You can see why Garingal's Tony Hill worked as a wedding photographer during his uni days - check out his sensational album from the carnival. Thanks Tony.
We wish safe travels and clean running to all those heading on to Tasmania immediately for the Oceania championships and opening round of the World Cup. We hope you have enjoyed a carnival that aimed to showcase the best of Sydney.
