Latest ONSW News
Basil and Jean have organised, coached, course-set and provided club leadership and mentoring in orienteering for nearly 50 years in regional centres of three states.
They were instrumental in establishing Goldseekers Orienteers in Orange in 1994. Their enthusiastic support of orienteering in the Central West was most recently on display as part of the Easter 2021 Orienteering carnival there.
Big Foot 16-year-old Nea Shingler is the junior women's National League champion for 2021 after a pulsating final weekend in tricky sand dunes at Broulee on the NSW South Coast.
Nea trailed South Australian Emily Sorensen heading into Saturday's last individual race with double points on offer. Both girls made mistakes and finished well back, but Nea's sixth placing - three minutes ahead of Emily - allowed her to triumph by a tiny margin (178-177) across their best six events.
While those two were battling for overall honours, Newcastle 14-year-old Erika Enderby had the run of her life to record her first race win in W20 - despite conceding up to six years in age and experience.
The new map featured lots of thick hip-high vegetation, small depressions and tiny knolls - making map contact essential.
This kind of orienteering terrain is very rare in Australia and it produced slow km rates in the older age groups who found the thick undergrowth and low visibility quite challenging.
In the junior men's section, David Stocks (ACT) won M20 overall after beating Nea's brother and previous series leader Ewan by four minutes on Saturday.
In Sunday's relays, the NSW junior women (Nea, Erika and older sister Mikayla - all pictured here) easily won W20 while the junior men were second.
Alastair George (BF) proved his pedigree in his first year in senior men (M21) by finishing fourth overall. Congratulations.
Results and splits are on our State League web page.
Final NOL standings can be found here.
Thanks to OACT for a great weekend in unique terrain.
Congratulations to Newcastle's Carolyn Matthews for a clean sweep of her three races in W50 at the Victorian MTBO Champs at the weekend.
It was only a tiny NSW contingent who made the long drive to a chilly Maryborough because the event clashed with our State League weekend on the south coast hosted by ACT.
Orienteers have taken out two endurance races at the weekend.
NSW Stinger Rob Preston (Newcastle) and his Thought Sports team won the Rogue Raid 24-hour adventure race in Queensland. The event was held at Mt Joyce Recreation Park at Wyaralong Dam.
Fourth was the team of Richard Mountstephens (Big Foot, pictured top), Chris and Michelle Delaney, and Ali McLachlan (all from our newest club Hastings Orienteering Group based in Port Macquarie).
At the rogaine in Belanglo State Forest on Saturday, our club members took out seven categories.
In the 6-hour event,
* Mark Freeman and son Oliver (Big Foot, pictured below) won the family division
* Amanda, Grace and Hamish Mackie (BF) took out the mixed section
* Peter and Wendy McConaghy (Garingal) were first in the mixed veteran class
* Sarah and Mary Fien (BF) won the women's and women's veteran classes
* Melissa Grant (Bennelong) and Penny Field (Uringa) won women's super veterans
In the 12-hour event,
* Graham Field and Martin Dearnley (GO) took out men's veterans and men's ultra veterans
* Cameron Walsh, Amelia Walsh, Emmanuelle Convert and Justine De Remy De Courcelles (WHO) won the family class.
Congratulations to all these champions!