Latest ONSW News
Our annual NSW Schools Champs took place at the weekend on an old Illawarra map favourite and a sparkling new gem.
Well-used Cataract Scout Park was the venue for the bush event on Saturday and the brilliant new-kid-on-the-block Uni of Wollongong for Sunday's sprint double.
Such a contrast in terrains and in skills needed - accurate bearings and track navigation on Saturday, then a complex building and path network the next day with lots of out-of-bounds garden beds.
Each day saw around 250 participants enjoy beautiful sunshine and seamless organisation by Illawarra Kareelah and guru Ron Pallas on SI timing. On Sunday we had Channel 9 turn up to capture some footage and interview some of our promising juniors (see pic left) - we're told the package will go to air on Tuesday night.
Greenwich Public is our new champion primary school, while KNOX Grammar retained their stranglehold on the high school trophy. CIS were again crowned champion region.
It was fantastic to see students from more than 70 schools in attendance. This is easily a record for this event and reflects the tireless work by our network of coaches in the Sporting Schools program and at the various regional schools championships.
Thanks to IKO and their small army of helpers for a lovely weekend. Our State League page has links to all the weekend results.
Participants are asked to fill in the very brief Course Setter Surveys for each event.
Thanks to Hills Council and our WHO club, we will be able to stage Round 5 of the MetrO League at Fred Caterson Reserve in Castle Hill on Sunday September 3.
Original organisers Big Foot had permission withdrawn at very late notice for their proposed event at St Ives, marring hours of fieldwork and a new map.
Garingal will be running SI and other clubs will be assisting with registration and the whiteboards.
The fast work by WHO and council means we can complete the round robin phase and have the finals at Boggabilla on September 10 as planned.
We are pleased to announce that Konsta Vanhanen will be our orienteering scholar for summer 2017-18.
Konsta is from Finland, as was our inaugural scholar Atte Lahtinen.
Konsta will arrive in time for the Australian championships in late September, then stay with Goldseekers for 4-5 weeks as they put on promotional events in Bathurst to capitalise on the carnival.
A keen MTBOer, Konsta is on the Finnish national team and also won the 2015 junior world rogaining champs in Finland. A young man of many talents, then, but we'll let him introduce himself a little further:
"My name is Konsta. You may know my country from saunas, Santa Claus (in fact I live only 200km away from Santa) and Formula One driver Kimi Räikkönen. Or perhaps Atte Lahtinen, my fellow country man, has already told you everything.
"At first I have to say that travelling Down Under has been a big dream for me for a while. I'm pretty spontaneous person, loving every kind of new challenge and adventure – but hopefully those "challenges" have nothing to do with snakes, crocodiles, bugs, spiders... and so on :D
"I'm a 23-year-old economics student going to take off one year from studying. I've been doing sport since I was a child (mainly skiing, running and Finnish baseball), and as late as at the age of 13 I began to orienteer. And after that there was no way back. Pretty soon I also began ski-orienteering and found mtb-orienteering. I've never been the fastest runner or the strongest cyclist, but instead I've concentrated to train and develop my orienteering skills and tried to find my own way for thinking. Nowadays I do some 50% of foot-o and 50% of mtbo. In foot-o I represent Finnish team Ikaalisten Nouseva-Voima, which has risen to top 15 Jukola team (Jukola is the greatest orienteering event on the earth organised every June in Finland). I've been running only in our second team, but it has been really instructive to follow at close quarters how the best elite orienteers train.
"In mtbo my best results are bronze in sprint in Junior World MTBO Champs 2014 and last week I achieved 6th place in sprint in the senior European MTBO Champs in France.
"I went to an orienteering high school for three years, where I learned a lot about what it means to be and act like an ambitious athlete and how to train. These are some aspects I'd like to bring with me from Finland and share for you the Finnish way of thinking about orienteering. Coaching is really dear to my heart and I'm always eager to talk about orienteering with people - so do not hesitate to ask me for a chat. And I'm hoping to coach as much as possible during my stay.
"I don’t know what to expect, but I'm sure the upcoming 6 months are going to be one of the coolest of my life and I'll meet a lot of great moments with you!
"Best regards," Konsta.
Competitors from four states - even Western Australia - made our annual Ski Orienteering event on Sunday the biggest and best ever.
Recent heavy dumps of snow, and clear blue skies on the day, made for ideal conditions at Perisher - and a record turnout of 50 participants certainly enjoyed it.
"Map attached to my jacket with safety pins and my compass on my zipper with a cable tie. Great fun and loved every minute of the long course," said WA's Natasha Sparg, who took a lesiurely 3 hrs 50m on the 7.3km Long course.
"Thank you to organisers Marina Iskhakova and Fedor Iskhakov for this amazing event. The best introduction I could ever have to skiing."
Co-sanctioned with OACT, the event was jointly organised by Red Roos, Big Foot and Perisher X Country as part of XC Ski week.
There were three line courses, a two-hour Snogaine and a family treasure hunt for parents and kids.
Results are here. We thank all those involved for this great initiative.
