Latest ONSW News
It's that time of the year when the seriously big carnivals dominate the European summer - and this week we have the annual World Masters and Junior World Championships underway.
Big Foot's Alastair George is the sole NSW representative at JWOC in Hungary. Competition starts tonight with the longest Long course ever for the junior men - 15km! You can catch all the action via the champs website.
Alastair is off at 5.59pm on Monday. Our new scholar, Grace Molloy from Scotland (who arrives in late September), is also competing.
WMOC in Denmark has already begun, with the Sprint finals run overnight. Ross Barr and Ron Junghans (Garingal), Debbie Davey and daughter Briohny Seaman (Waggaroos), Julia Prudhoe (Central Coast) and Jean Baldwin (Goldseekers) made their respective A finals.
Debbie fared the best, placing 12th in W60A. Courses were set around Copenhagen's inner harbour and seemed far too easy overall, with only a couple of legs featuring difficult route choices. You can catch all the action via the WMOC champs website.
Middle distance qualification is on Tuesday.
One fascinating event in the lead-up was an indoor sprint in a multi-level high school campus (called a Gymnasium - but not a gym as such). The map covered four levels, and controls were found between book shelves, in a toilet, at a piano, in offices and classrooms. Very tricky and exciting orienteering. Here's the map! How do you get from 10 to 11? Look carefully!
GO's Barbara Junghans said: "This event was amazing! The organisers/course planners obviously put a lot of effort into ensuring the desks in the class rooms and the open plan areas matched the arrangement on the map perfectly. Simply by using red-and-white tape they created many devious blockages to potential routes, which really made us think."
Read all about the indoor sprint here and see pics here - do you know of a location we could do this in NSW?
One of our promising female juniors, Tshinta Hopper, has enjoyed a stunning maiden win at W20A level in State League 11 at Belanglo.
The Bennelong Northsider beat seasoned NSW Stinger Rebecca George (Big Foot) by more than two minutes on the Tree Cave Track map on Sunday as the 170 competitors braved strong icy winds and sub-zero 'feels like' temperatures on both days in the Southern Highlands.
It was quite a weekend for our founding club as Rachael Povah, dipping her toes into serious bush o, took out W35AS on both days and newcomer Heidi Milliss claimed bragging rights in W Open B on Moderate courses.
Former Australian champion and WOC rep Grace Crane and brother Matthew (ACT) won the 21A classes at Saturday's Middle Distance events on the Tallowa Gully map near Wingello. This small, steep area was dominated by termite mounds and small rockfaces. It had not been used for at least a dozen years.
Thanks to Bennelong and Illawarra Kareelah for the events, and their many helpers from other clubs. Results links are on the SL web page, and the OY scores will soon be updated. You can find a Facebook album of photos here.
A reminder to all participants to please fill out the very brief Course Setter surveys.
Our next State League is the NSW Sprint Championships at UNSW on Sunday July 29. Double points are again on offer - this is one of the best sprint maps in Australia. Entries close on Wednesday July 18.
A big program of regional schools champs has wrapped up for Term 3.
Sydney South West secondary was the last of 7 such days, at Lake Alexandra Reserve in Mittagong on Wednesday. This map has recently been extended by our Swedish scholar Tuve Moller.
Around 100 students enjoyed a cool, sunny day. There was a wonderful win by Hurlstone Ag HS overall as their Year 11 students covered more than 5 km.
Chevalier College cleaned up the Year 9-10 courses, and we welcomed a home-school group.
Thanks SHOO.
On Tuesday, the Hunter region champs were held at Blue Gum Hills Regional Park, with 73 students competing.
Individual champions were NSW junior squad members Mikayla Endbery (Warners Bay HS) and Tommy Mella (Dungog HS), while the champion school was Irrawang HS.
Newcastle member Colin Bailey has conducted this for 18 years now. Thanks Colin and NC.
Results for both days have been added to the schools champs web page.
A reminder too that entries are open for the NSW Schools Champs in Sydney's Hills District on September 1-2.
Garingal gun Glenn Horrocks has taken out his 10th Turkey Trot, narrowly winning the annual 20km event at Cherrybrook and Westleigh.
The Turkey Trot is a mass start event with multiple map changes and three course lengths: 20km, 12km and 8km.
Glenn's time of 1:58:32 was 45 seconds than Big Foot's Bart Vonhoff, with GO junior Keelan Birch a further four seconds behind. Glenn has won eight times outright and had two dead-heats.
Newcastle's Clare Williams won the women's Long race and was fifth overall in 2:16:40, edging out Aniko Fozo-Kertesz (GO) by two minutes.
In the Middle (12km), it was a Big Foot trifecta among the women with Jo Parr beating her daughter Rebecca George and Nicole Mealing. in the men's section, Garingal junior Duncan Currie streeted the field by 21 minutes, leaving Tim Giles and Ruairidh MacDonald (BF) to battle for the minor placings.
There were clar ten-minute victories in the Short (8km), with ONSW director Michael Ridley-Smith and GO clubmate and visiting Finnish teenager Iida Lehtonen (pictured) winning easily.
Including the Enter on Day people doing shorter courses, we had a record 104 participants for the Turkey Trot.
Thanks to WHO for another iconic event. All the results and maps will be on the TT web page soon.
Meanwhile, on Saturday we had around 60 people attend another free taster event at Berowra. Thanks to our helper team of Louise, Dave, Keelan and Ross. The next free taster is at Hornsby Heights Scout Hall on Saturday July 14, with starts from 1-3pm.
