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The teams with running order - NSW Teams
Some changes have been made as Sat, 13th Sept. Please let
Big Foot added another notch to their heavyweight belt by taking out MetrO League Divisions 1 and 2 in stunning weather on a new map at Cecil Hills on Sunday.
It was the first double in ML history in the top two grades, and even more impressive when you consider that Australia's champion orienteering club was without at least two of its gun runners. And... 4 of the 5 Divn 1 runners are over 50. What athletes !
The Divn 1 victory over WHO 34-21 made it six premierships in a row for the Feet and belied their draw in round 5 at Beacon Hill. ONSW president Greg Barbour led the way with the fastest time of the day of just under 30 minutes.
In Division 2 Big Foot also had a comfortable win, 33-22 over the Garingal Dragons who were missing three regulars. GO youngster Duncan Currie was fastest in 31.18.
WHO at least enjoyed some success with a tight 29-27 win over IKO in Division 3. WHO benefited from an extra point when Graeme Hill and Tim Perry both finished in 42.33, and Ian Froude (IK) was left ruing the three seconds he finished behind Daniel Smith. That's how close it was.
Bennelong Northside took out Division 4, 31-24 over the Garingal Monitors - but lost Division 5 (30-25) to SHOO's Golden Oldies.
Thank you to WHO for a great new area in Sydney, and to Robert Bradley - the 2013 ONSW Course Setter of the Year - for his excellent courses.
Congratulations to our winners for 2014:
Divn 1: Big Foot. Indiv medal: Andrew Hill (WHO)
Divn 2: Big Foot. Indiv medal: Angus Shedden (SHOO)
Divn 3: WHO. Indiv medal: Alex Karavaev (IKO)
Divn 4: Bennelong Northside. Indiv medal: Lewis Redner and Tania Kennedy (GO)
Divn 5: SHOO. Indiv medal: Samuel Tsang (BN)
Results, head-to-head results, the individual medal tallies and photos are all now available.
We thank all clubs for their wonderful spirit in 2014 and look forward to the 2015 season.
The 2014 Goanna, the third year of this goat racing format, had a distinctly international flavour as it moved into the winter calendar on the Macquarie Uni map.
Craig Ogilvie, a member of the Rand OC executive in South Africa, was here on holidays, saw the event on the calendar, and entered. And a late starter on the GeckO course was Aco Stamenkovski from Macedonia. Dobra work !
The mass start format saw many of the 67 runners remain at the big green flag for 30-60 seconds while working out the optimal route to the first control on each course, and perhaps their 'skip'.
With following allowed and permission to skip one control (two on the Goanna), it was worth planning ‘the skip’ early on to avoid possibly losing time in the green or from a climb.
The two longer courses had plenty of climb and crossed Lane Cover River twice. Fortunately the week’s rain meant only the shoes got wet, although Maggie Jones (UR) found a way to cross back via the weir waist-deep! “It was lovely, I needed cooling off,” she reported.
First finisher was Garingal club captain Tania Kennedy on the GeckO (4.3km) course. Tania skipped #5. When she entered Christie Park she cut straight across the oval to #6 (187), and finished in 32 minutes exactly. She was followed by four outstanding juniors in Ewan Shingler (runner-up for the second year), Finn Mackay, Jonathan Koruga and Tania’s youngest son Tom.
Waggaroos have comfortably retained the annual Interclub trophy after a draw with Albury-Wodonga in the final round.
Round 6 was conducted in the hilly terrain at the northern end of Livingstone State Forest. The courses challenged participants to choose the best way to avoid unnecessary climb while also avoiding the scrubbier sections and making sure control sites could be sensibly attacked.
Points are allocated based on equal numbers of participants on each course, similar to the Sydney-based MetrO League.
Joshua Roberts (NC) was the standout performer on the day, whipping around the 5.3km hard course in just under 49 minutes and almost 15 minutes ahead of Wagga's John Oliver. John’s performance gave the hosts a good start but Albury hit back with Wayne Bajenoff and Leigh Privett finishing ahead of Dale Clegg (WR) to tie this course 5 points all.
Sue LeFoe pushed Albury into the lead with a good win on the 3.1km Moderate Course. Ed McDougall, fresh from his success at the NSW schools championships in Newcastle the previous weekend, finished second to close the gap for Wagga. When Julie Gooding finished close behind Ed and ahead of Bill Krautz (A), Wagga had caught up and tied the points on this course too.
As a result WaggaRoos and Albury tied the day at 10 points all and WaggaRoos won the series 93-77.
