Latest ONSW News

The last in the 2012 Sydney Summer Southern Series is at Clovelly Beach on Monday 10th December.  Fans will remember the hills and views of this fantastic area of the Eastern Suburbs as they raced around Joel Putnam's cleverly set course last year.  He is back as the organiser again this year so participants will need to remember to concentrate on the contour detail when planning their routes, and not get distracted by the gorgeous views of Wedding Cake Island.  Event starts are from  4:30pm to 6:45pm and participants are encouraged to bring their swimmers and something to pop on the beachside BBQ after their run.

New maps at the latest DuO event meant that there was plenty of adventure on offer, despite some of the choicest tracks being embargoed for the State Championships next September.  Denis Lyons produced two new Foot O and a MTBO map for the DuO which was enjoyed by nearly 90 competitors at the second of the 2012/13 season of DuO races. 

Organiser Greg Bacon was concerned about the effect the heatwave might have on competitors but on the day the weather was kinder than expected, overcast with milder temperatures than forecast.  Three courses were on offer: Bitte, Twisted and Taster and all had been planned to offer an enjoyable challenge to all levels of competitor.  FootO stages were scatter courses, with the competitors having one minute to work out the best ways to tackle the course.  The MTBO stages were kept to a medium length with controls placed at regular intervals to keep interest and a sense of urgency going.

Twisted Men: 1st Greg Barbour BF, 2nd Steven Todkill NC, 3rd Patrick Gunnarson BF

Twisted Women:1st Mary Fien BFN,2nd Nicole Haigh NCN,3rd Kevin & Deborah Hancock

Bitte Men: 1st Bjorn Mella NC, 2nd Glenn Burgess NC, 3rd Robert Prentice SH

Bitte Women: 1st Carolyn Matthews NC, 2nd Sally Anne Henderson, 3rd Marina Iskhakova BN

Taster: 1st Jenny Enderby NC, 2nd Peter Newton NC, 3rd Chris & Logan Radford

Full report and results can be found on the DuO homepage here.

The next DuO race is at Belanglo State Forest 10th March 2013.

Thanks to Greg Bacon for his help with this report.

Goat racing is here to stay, judging by the enthusiastic response to the inaugural GOanna event at South Turramurra on Sunday.  Over 50 orienteers turned up to the first GOanna, brainchild of ONSW Marketing Officer Ian Jessup, and they were a little unsure what to expect.   What they got was mostly line course, with a small section of scatter course at some stage, some forked controls, the option to skip a control or controls, a mass start - and permission to 'follow', a practice otherwise discouraged in our sport. So tactics would have to be made up on the run, along with switching modes and trying to work out which control(s) to skip. (It was so complex to program that the SI computer crashed midweek trying to calculate the number of permutations!)

The comfort zone of a standard score or line course was thrown out the window as runners were confronted with much mental arithmetic as well as keeping an eye on their rivals. And so it proved, with O luminaries Michael Burton and Glenn Horrocks among the casualties to DNF. They were among nine of the 26 GOanna entries (9km) to unwittingly spike the wrong control midway through their course. This was perhaps a sneaky piece of course setting, but they paid the price for not checking their clue sheet. Winner Eric Morris of Bennelong Northside showed a clean pair of heels and an astute mind: not only did he run 8.1km in a tad over 40 minutes in testing terrain, but he had a strong feeling upon coming out of what he thought was #10a at a track junction (and actually was #1 from the GeckO) that the control was too close to the main track. He went back to check and sure enough found it was the wrong control. 20m farther up the track indeed was #10a. What great orienteering and presence of mind! With minimal fuss Eric completed his course and took home the Xmas pudding kindly donated by the NSW junior squad, beating his brother Richard by three minutes.

On the 6km DraGOn course, all 9 entrants completed the course. First home was Ken Jacobson of Garingal in 45m38s. Only 15 seconds separated second from fourth, with WHO's Ian Miller deadheating with Garingal's Tim Cox for third - bringing back memories of Bonecrusher and Our Waverley Star !
And on the 4km GeckO (dropping the tail off the shorter courses), it was a different Cox - Mel from BN - who got the pudding in a time of 28m40s. All that time spent on Letters and Numbers clearly paid off as Mel pipped GO's NSW rookie junior Alex Kennedy by 1m20s.

With a staggered start for the 3 courses, the idea was that all the runners would converge near where the GeckO (shortest course) entered the bush. That did not quite happen as the GOanna big guns flew around the magnificent bush of the Browns Waterhole map in Lane Cove National Park, meaning the later (and often slower) starters were playing cat rather than mouse. My apologies for underestimating our elites !
The event was an experiment to (1) see if there is scope for an annual event unlike any other on the ONSW calendar, (2) keep the runners under constant decision-making pressure and (3) have a bit more 'fun' than might be evident in our usual events.
There was much animated discussion and post-race analysis, all of it curious and good-natured. "Which controls did you skip?", "In which order did you do the box?", "How did you go from the box to #8?" "That was great, a lot of fun."

A huge thank you must go to:
* Ross Duker for doing SI and helping put out controls on Saturday evening in extreme heat and humidity
* Steve Ryan for also putting out controls and sweeping up most of them behind the last runner on Sunday
* Dave Stitt for driving Steve around on Sunday
* Bev Johnson for looking after rego
* Barb Dawson for organising the prizes
* everyone who entered for having a go at something different and making it a rewarding event organising experience.
The results, splits and courses are on the Garingal results page http://garingal.com.au/index.php/results?task=view&id=346

Thanks to Ian Jessup for this report - and a fantastic new event!

Congratulations to Nick Dent, Central Coast Orienteers, and Head Coach NSW who has been appointed High Performance Operations Manager for Orienteering Australia.

Nick brings a wide breadth of experience to the role.  He has been  orienteering since 1984 and is a Level 3 coach and controller.  He was JWOC coach in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009 and Event Director of the World Masters in 2009.

Orienteering Australia thanks his predecessor, Gareth Candy, who will continue to input in a  voluntary capacity. 

Thanks to Kay Haarsma for this report