Latest ONSW News
Its official - summer is just around the corner. How do we know (apart from the date of course)? The Sydney Summer Series and the new South and West Summer Series have all published their racing dates.
The well established and hotly contested Sydney Summer Series ('SSS') starts on Wednesday October 3rd with an event at Shrimpton's Creek and flows through 27 weekly events until March 27th 2013. The SSS is again including the Metro Minigaine on Sunday 3rd March - a great addition last year to this popular series.
Sydney West and Sydney South Series are growing, sharing the Monday slots before Christmas with 13 events between them. Sydney South includes a Sunday event 21 October in Centennial Park following on directly from the World Fire Fighter Games courses in the morning - come and see if you can beat their times!
NSW Melanie Simpson is in Budapest this week, training with the Australian team ahead of the World MTBO Championships which start on 20 August in Veszprém, about 100km west from Budapest. The only woman on the nine strong Aussie team, Melanie is racing in the Elite Woman Sprint, Middle and Long Distance races. Follow her progress, and the rest of the team:
Steve Cusworth (Vic), Oscar Phillips (Tas), Ricky Thackray (WA) in Elite Men; Tom Goddard (Tas), Chris Firman (Qld), Marc Gluskie (Tas), Heath Jamieson (Vic), Karl Withers (Qld) Junior Men.
on their blog: http://ausmtboteam.blogspot.com.au/
It will be an exciting week in Hungary as in addition to the Elite and Junior World MTBO Championships, the MTBO Masters Championships are being contested. Whilst there are no more NSW competitors there are still plenty of Australians to watch out for:Tamsin Barnes W40, Bruce Paterson M40, Richard Robinson M50, Peter Cusworth M50, Carolyn Cusworth W50, Carolyn Jackson W50, Ian Dalton (Open A). Catch up with their progress on the event website http://www.mtbo.hu/mtbwoc2012.php
The 2012/2013 Duo Adventure race series has just been announced and it looks to be a fantastic set of races this year! A new course for novices is included to allow whole families to participate, and fee structures have been reviewed to make the series even more attractive than ever. ACT Orienteering has joined in too with the last race of the series being held in Canberra - just part of the DuO Adventure Race world domination plan.
With 4 great races in fantastic areas in Newcastle, Belanglo and Canberra, the growing group of DuO Adventure enthusiasts are going to have so much fun this season.
Race 1. 4th Nov 2012 Hawkemount (Awaba) Newcastle club
Race 2. 2nd Dec 2012 Bluegum Hills Regional Park Minmi Newcastle Club
Race 3. 10th Mar 2013 Belanglo (Southern Highlands) Bigfoot Club
Race 4. 14th Apr 2013 Canberra ACT Orienteering
Read all about it in the latest newsletter from organiser Greg Bacon.
A
nd if that were not enough, DuO Adventure has a brand new sponsor. Active Cycles of Newcastle is onboard to support our 2012-13 Race Series with Trek Australia. They have supplied a Trek Cobia 29 er as the lucky draw prize for the series! The more you enter, the more chances there are to win a brand new bike!
Get the dates in your diary and take up the challenge!
Goldseekers event at Oaky Creek on 5th August attracted 54 people on a lovely sunny morning. Reddall Leslie had set very good courses in this popular area of native bush near Mullion Creek. Darren Francis continued his good form by winning the Hard Long course while Daniel Parton put in a good run to come third. 
Daniel will be travelling to Tasmania with the NSW Schools Team to compete in the National Championships in October.
Greg Smith was the winner of the Hard Short course. Stephen Johnson and his daughter Hannah won the popular Moderate course. Three families came along to their first event and all successfully completed the 2.8km Easy course with the Livermore family taking first place. Competitors had travelled from as far away as Dubbo, Rylstone, Katoomba, Bathurst and Molong.
Thanks to Jean Baldwin for this report and photograph.
