Latest ONSW News
Erika Enderby (Newcastle) and Nea Shingler (Big Foot) started the 2021 National League in roaring form with wins in the opening round in Victoria at the weekend.
Erika (pictured right), who is just 14 and was giving away up to four years in experience, won the Middle and Long Distance races in W18A to follow her third in the Saturday morning Sprint at Gisborne.
Nea, 15, ran in W20E and won the Sprint by a minute. Older brother Ewan sits second in the M20E standings after two second placings on Saturday and a fourth in the Long at Creswick on Sunday.
Other top-3 NOL placings were:
* Mikayla Enderby (NC, W18A) third in the Middle
* Oskar Mella (NC, M20E) third in the Middle
Alastair George (BF) is 5th in the Senior Men's standings and the evergreen Jenny Enderby (NC, pictured middle) in the Senior Women's.
Among the mere mortals competing in the public races, Debbie Davey (Waggaroos) won Course 3W at the Middle and Long while Andrew Lumsden (BF) won Course 3 at the Sprint.
Click the blue links for results from the Sprint, Middle and Long.
Newcastle wrapped up the 12th and most successful season of their popular mountain bike orienteering series at Killingworth on Sunday.
Rain kept numbers to around 60 but that still lifted the series tally to 418 entries, with more than 160 unique individuals participating in at least one event.
A big thank you to Greg Bacon and the hard-working Newcastle crew, especially the new special family offer that lets parents ride alone and then with the kids.
Series winners were:
Male Line Score - Steve Todkill
Female Line Score - Carolyn Matthews
Male All Score - Wayne Hawken
Female All Score - Carol Pearce
E Bike Male - Graham Fowler
E Bike Female - Rikki McConkey
Team - Arblaster
Family - Johnson Family
The postponed BOSS 5 at Glenrock will now be held on Anzac Day afternoon. Details are here.
You can find the final BOSS points tallies here.
Waggaroos had a delayed 2020 presentation evening in conjunction with their annual training weekend as they signalled the annual transition into bush mode.
Saturday afternoon activities at Charles Sturt Uni consisted of a number of exercises on the rocky hill, followed by a very informative walk around the campus buildings with Alex Davey explaining how to interpret the control descriptions peculiar to sprint orienteering.
Family teams took out all six podium positions at the annual O'Shea weekend on the Central Coast in much milder conditions than usual.
Those pairs that best navigated the rock of Rumbalara Reserve on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning ended up winning the traditional cake prizes (fruit cakes adorned with spearmint leaves).
The Saturday night run at Mt Penang Gardens was the easiest of the three races - but also bore witness to some catastrophic errors (we're not naming names!).
Newcastle father-and-son team Bjorn and Oskar Mella won the Long Pairs by an astonishing 24 minutes from Garingal couple Toni Bachvarova and Andrew Smith.
Newcastle couple Damien and Jenny Enderby (daughter of event founder Frank Anderson) were third.
The Enderby daughters Mikayla and Erika won the Short Pairs by an even greater 26 minutes from Nikolett Halmai and brother-in-law Peter Fozo (Garingal). Another Hungarian couple, Arpad Kocsik and Andrea Lux, were third.
The O'Shea comprises a two-person relay (total time counts), then a night run (better of the two times counts) and a Sunday morning team score course (both runners have to finish together after splitting the controls between them).
Cumulative results can be found here and a link to maps here. Thanks to the Central Coast club for a huge effort. The planned date for the O'Shea in 2021 is Mar 5-6.
Central Coast will also be staging four park/sprint events over winter aimed at newcomers: on May 9, June 20, July 4 and August 1.
