Latest ONSW News
Juniors Toby Wilson and Georgia Jones are the new NSW faces in Orienteering Australia's High Performance Squads for 2015.
The OA high performance pathway has been thoroughly reworked in the past 15 months to define a clearer path from talented junior to world championship athlete.
Garingal Year 12 student Toby has shown he can mix it with the open men, taking out a Sydney Sprint recently. He comes into the OA Junior Development Squad.
One rung beneath, in the Targeted Talented Athlete Squad, is Uringan Georgia. The Year 11 student was in the Australian All Schools Honour team last year.
Three-time JWOC rep Michele Dawson has moved from the OA junior development squad into the national development squad. Younger brother Aidan is in the junior squad for a second year.
Our ONSW representatives in the OA squads are:
Elite HPS: Julian Dent (CC).
High Performance Squad: Rob Preston (NC).
National Development Squad: Alex Massey (NC), Michele Dawson (GO).
Junior Development Squad: Nicola Blatchford (NC), Aidan Dawson (GO), Daniel Hill (GO), Toby Wilson (GO).
Talented Target Athlete Squad: Georgia Jones (UR).
Congratulations to all these orienteers. The full OA squads can be viewed here.
Entries close this week for our first two big weekends of 2015.
Central Coast is hosting its annual O'Shea 2-Days carnival in the Gwandalan area at the southern end of beautiful Lake Macquarie. This is mainly for pairs, but single entries are welcome, too.
While it has a great social atmosphere (and some participants dress up in wacky matching outfits), the prizes - cakes decorated with spearmint leaf lollies (see pic, left) - are keenly sought after.
The three events are:
* a Saturday afternoon relay at Point Wolstoncroft (State Recreation Area)
* a Saturday eveningight event at Summerland Point - mainly streets and parks. Only one member of pair needs to run the night sector, but both can.
* a Sunday morning Pairs Score event in Gwandalan - the map is newly extended into the bush with a complex track network; so part of the map is bush, and part is streets and parks. Each pair splits the controls up between them, aiming to finish together.
Entries will now close on Thursday. Enter on Day is strictly limited.
On March 7-8 NSW is hosting the opening round of our State League as well as the National League (NOL). This is a triple treat of sprint O, with new maps at Sir Joseph Banks Park in Botany and the Uni of NSW.
Saturday morning's first event is a relay at Sydney Uni. Big Foot even have a nifty little program to help you find a partner for the event. Entries close on Friday. Enter on Day is on offer but pre-entry is again preferred.
Orienteering NSW is calling for nominations for the 2015 NSW Schools Team.
Up to 20 high school students - junior boys and girls (15 and under), and senior boys and girls - are selected to compete in the Australian All Schools Championships in individual and relay races.
In 2015, the squad (known as the Carbines) will travel with a manager and coach to Victoria for a week of competition during the September/October school holidays.
Nominations close on March 6. The squad will be announced by June 30, after the Queen's Birthday weekend State Leagues.
The first 4 State League weekends will be the selection trials (all State Leagues 1 to 9). Written notification to the Chair of Selectors (Andy Hill) is required if illness, injury or exceptional circumstances prevent attendance at any race.
Please submit your nomination to NSW selector Hilary Wood (
The coach for 2015 is Jock Davis (Big Foot) and the manager is Sally Devenish (Western Plains). Andy Hill, Hilary Wood and Jock Davis will continue as selectors for the NSW Schools team in 2015.
This is a friendly reminder to everyone to be aware of common Out of Bounds (OOB) areas on sprint maps.
Our permission to conduct events in many places depends on participants obeying the instructions of the landowner, and we do not wish to lose access to these wonderful venues.
Sprint orienteering is like T20 cricket: it's the shortest, fastest version of our sport - and it has some different rules to standard orienteering. In particular, what constitutes out of bounds or an 'uncrossable area'.
A standard summer series event will have OOB that regulars are familiar with: residential areas, anything marked with black-and-white or pink-and-white stripes, high fences etc.
At sprint level, where the navigation is much more intricate due to the often urban setting and larger scale of the map (1:4,000 for example), additional features are marked as OOB (click on the legend above for a larger version).
These are usually olive green sections (denoting garden beds or private property) and thick black lines (high walls). It is forbidden to cross these or lean over them to reach a control. Have a look at the Routegadget map from Sydney Olympic Park on Feb 1 to see how prevalent they are, especially bordering the Aquatic Centre car park and in the Abbatoir Heritage Precinct.
Now click on Toby Wilson's GPS route to see how he tackled control #10 - just beyond the olive section. Toby (the red line in the pic, left) goes straight from #9 to the inside corner, then realises he must go around the olive bit to punch it from the outside. Well done Toby.
We understand that this may seem arbitrary and picky, but continuing access to these maps depends on runners doing the right thing. Orienteering rules state that runners entering or crossing out of bounds areas are to be disqualified.
For a summary of the map symbols used in Sprint Orienteering, including the Out of Bound symbols, click here. For the complete International Specification for Sprint Orienteering Maps, click here.
