Latest ONSW News
Spring is upon us and the winter O season is about to end, but there's still plenty of great MTBO (Mountain Bike Orienteering) action to be had in the next 4-8 weeks.
October 10-11 sees the last round of the National League near Busselton in WA, following the Foot O Australian championships in the west.
Closer to home, the ACT champs are on from October 18-19. This is strictly pre-enter. Details are on the flyer.
Last cab off the rank is Victoria, who host their Sprint champs at Maryborough on Nov 1 and their Middle and Long titles at Wangaratta the following weekend.
Over summer our Newcastle club puts on the popular BOSS (Bike Orienteering Summer Series), a series of monthly 75-minute MTBO score courses on Sunday mornings.
A massive congratulations to the NSW junior boys team who took out the Australian schools relay and prevented a Kiwi clean sweep.
Alistair George (BF, R), Duncan Currie (GO, L) and Callum Davis (BF) had three wonderfully consistent runs to finish 1:18 ahead of the New Zealand side. The Big Foot boys were fastest in their races, while Duncan was second in his leg.
Alistair has been posting sensational times in MetrO and State Leagues this year, Duncan has been running up an age group in M16A and Callum performs best when the big events are on.
The whole NSW orienteering community salutes these boys, coach Joack and manager Sally for this win.
The senior boys (Garingal trio Daniel Hill, Toby Wilson, Aidan Dawson) were fourth home, 10:37 behind the Kiwi champs but only 4:25 adrift of the first Aussie team home (Tasmania).
The senior girls were also fourth, alas 43 minutes off third place. The junior girls were last of the 10 teams but they are a very young bunch and have some years ahead of them in this division.
In the schools individual champs on Wednesday, our best performers were Georgia Jones (UR) third in the senior girls and the second Australian home and Daniel Hill seventh (third Australian) in the senior boys. Callum was ninth in the junior boys and Claire Burgess (NC) 14th in the junior girls.
Following the two days of schools action, Georgia and Daniel were named in the Australian Schools Honour Team.
Our annual Summer Series are underway, with the original Sydney edition (now in its 24th year) kicking off on the Browns Waterhole map at South Turramurra.
Setter Ross Duker conjured up a lovely mix of bush and street running, and Jeremy Fowler emerged top dog with 580 points out of a possible 600. Raw results are here.
The only sad note was discovering that the delightful pocket of forest just to the west of the Village Green (between #1 and #17 on the map) has been wiped out to make way for more housing.
Next Wednesday the SSS moves to Dundas, while Newcastle break out the running singlets with a 30-minute warm-up event at Carrington.
Summer Series events are open to all comers and usually adopt a 'score' format - in which you try to get to as many control points as you can within the specified time limit. That's mostly 45 minutes but sometimes 30. Controls are worth different amounts so planning your route is crucial to scoring well. Some allow planning time.
The late afternoon timeslot adopted by most series offers everyone the chance of a nice after-work run or walk (Central Coast do a Sunday morning series).
There's also a great social atmosphere as runners and walkers alike go for lunch/dinner/drinks or a swim afterwards.
Summer Series events are a great way to discover more of your local area as they take you through parks, reserves, bush tracks and harbour foreshores. Take the kids or take a buddy. Click on the links below to find the series in your area.
Sydney North Newcastle Orange Illawarra
Big Foot president Andy Simpson made his mark on the Australian Sprint Championships by taking out M50A. Andy (pictured) was 11 seconds clear on the 1.8km course. Feet clubmates Mark Shingler (4th) and Simon George (8th) made it an impressive race for the pink club.
Andy sprinted home as winner in front of 'mum and dad' over from the UK (who also competed and showed where Andy gets his talent from - mum Hilary won W75A, and dad Trevor was 2nd in M75A!
Curtin University hosted the second event of the national titles on Monday, and other NSW winners were Mikayla Enderby (W10A), Serena Doyle (W12A), Jenny Enderby (W45A), Fedor Iskhakov (M35A), Chippy le Carpentier (M70A), Basil Baldwin (M75A) and Neil Schafer (M85A).
Our roving reporter Barbara Dawson, with a vested interest in her talented offspring, fills us in: "The morning was overcast with scattered storms. From the arena it was a 700m walk to the start - atop a two-storey car par. Upon starting, runners crossed the empty car park, went down a ramp, across a road that was marshalled and up some stairs to the start triangle. A very interesting start, I must say.
"Once racing started the weather gods shone and it cleared to a nice blue sky. The junior elite men set a cracking pace, with our son Aidan pushing hard in front of his own personal cheer squad at the spectator control, a sculpture near the arena.
"Aidan came in 4th but ended up 9th, an impressive result in a very high-quality field. The junior elite women were also tightly packed in a very competitive age class. Michele went out second runner and posted a good time of 16 minutes. This held up for quite a while and in the end was beaten only by Nicola Blatchford (NC) and 3 Kiwis.
"As usual, route choice was paramount. It was a single level uni campus with lots of garden beds (out of bounds) to take into account."
Results are on Eventor: note these will be updated as there were some glitches.
Focus now shifts to the Australian Schools Championship events on Wednesday (individuals) and Thursday (relays) on the rolling hills and extensive areas of granite south-west of Northam.
