Orienteering NSW

Coming Events

map	Sun 3 Nov 4:00 pm River and Bay Series #2 - Randwick Over the Rainbow, Randwick

map	Wed 6 Nov 4:30 pm 2024/25 Sydney Summer Series #5 - Lindfield Primula Oval, Lindfield.

map	Wed 6 Nov 5:00 pm Newcastle Summer Street Series #4 - Blackalls Park Blackalls Park

map	Thu 7 Nov 5:00 pm Summer series #1 72 Ross Street

map	Fri 8 Nov 5:30 pm Goldseekers Park #2 - Gosling Creek Gosling Creek

map	Sat 9 Nov 9:30 am SOS 4 Gore Hill Oval, 209 Pacific Highway, St Leonards. Meet by the oval car park and playground.

map	Sat 9 Nov 10:00 am Illawarra Map Running Series - Spring #4 Unanderra Lindsay Maynes Park, cnr Princes Highway & Factory Rd, Unanderra

map	Sun 10 Nov 9:00 am Central Coast Summer Series 1 - Shelly Beach Naomi Honey Reserve, Shelly Beach Rd, Shelly Beach

map	Sun 10 Nov 4:00 pm River and Bay Series #3 - Canterbury The Gallops, Tasker park, Phillips Avenue Canterbury

map	Wed 13 Nov 4:30 pm 2024/25 Sydney Summer Series #6 - Camperdown Memorial Rest Park, Camperdown.

Are you highly organised? Able to manage a diverse range of people? Orienteering NSW is looking to appoint a Development Officer Co-Ordinator to manage our growing load of requests for assistance.

The position is two days a week but initially may involve additional hours as we bed down the new Sporting Schools program as well.

ONSW receives many requests for development work: from schools, scout/guide groups, corporates, to co-host charity events, and even to put on orienteering birthday parties. Our aim is to double participation by 2020. The Development Officer Co-Ordinator will drive this growth in conjunction with the Admin Officer and Marketing & Communications Officer.

Please see the job advertisement for further details. Applications must be made by August 31 to Paul Prudhoe (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

A beautiful blue sky, temps nudging 20C, wildflowers galore and sensational views to the CBD - the serenity of MetrO League round 5 at Manly Dam hid the tense battles for places in the final on a tough map.

There was plenty of drama in Division 4, where the young GO Legless team jumped from fourth to take second place on points difference after thrashing hosts Bennelong. Uringa-Central Coast blew their chance by losing to the GO Monitors; likewise WHO's loss to top team KNOX meant they dipped out.

In Division 2, SHOO edged out defending champions Big Foot on points difference to grab second spot. SHOO benefited from two Bennelong runners recording an mp.

In Division 3, IKO and UR-CC were untroubled and finished well clear of the rest of the pack. In Division 5 the bottom three teams all won, meaning UR-CC and WHO stayed first and second.

In Division 1, Garingal at last got the better of Big Foot in the cross country scoring method. Their final promises to be a cracking contest.

Our finals on August 23 will be:

Division 1 - Big Foot v Garingal
Division 2 - GO Dragons v SHOO
Division 3 - IKO v Uringa-Central Coast
Division 4 - BF-KNOX v GO Legless
Division 5 - UR-CC v WHO

The map was almost entirely green and black; so it was a constant battle to retain map contact as all the many tracks, fire trails, rockfaces and boulders seemed a blur. As such, times were generally slow even the courses were not that long.

The thick bush meant visibility was low; combined with all the rockfaces and bare rock this placed placing a premium on map reading.

At the pointy end the big guns were untroubled: WHO's James MacQuillan broke through for a maiden win in Division 1 in 38m51s, Garingal junior Duncan Currie (38m17s) streeted Division 2 by a massive six minutes, IKO rookie Simon Louis (29m56s) was seven and a half minutes clear in Division 3, and KNOX captain Dylan Sherman (31m17s) took out Division 4 by five and half minutes. Wow. Congratulations on such great orienteering.

In the contest for the individual medals, Angus Shedden (SH) has won Division 2. The tightest race is in Division 4, where Garingal junior Tom Kennedy and WHO's Marie Ringer (40) are just in front of Dylan Sherman (39). Toby Wilson (GO) leads Divn 1 from Andrew Brown (BF) and James MacQuillan. In Division 3, only a point separates Nicole Sellin (GO) from Linda Sesta (UR, who was absent on Sunday). And in Division 5, John Russell (SH) has a seven-point lead over Garingal pair Ellis Leung and Ian Jessup.

Thanks to Bennelong for a great day out. Results are on the ML web page, along with the draw for the last round at Nurragingy.

Our NSW junior squad had a great three-day camp in Orange at the end of the school holidays to prepare for the Australian championships in Ballarat in September.

Our regular juniors were joined by 5 new juniors from Wagga Wagga and 6 juniors from ACT. We had a total of 41 juniors and parents. Coach Jock Davis had planned some training for juniors and parents that started at Kahli's Rocks and moved onto Macquarie Woods and Gumble. Jock was assisted by Michele Dawson (in far right of pic) and Toni Brown.

On Friday night Michele shared with the juniors her experience at 3 Junior World Orienteering Championships, how to nominate for JWOC, selection races and the benefits of representing Australia. This proved to be very popular with lots of juniors taking the opportunity to ask questions over the next couple of days. Visting Danish orienteer Stefan Frands Petersen also assisted with coaching and discussing JWOC.

On Friday night, juniors also met with Jock to discuss their training maps and route choices, or with Toni to test their knowledge and visualising powers through several paper based activities.

Saturday's training took place at Macquarie Woods with some route choice timing exercises before juniors and parents did a short or long course.

ONSW thanks Jock and Manager Sally Devenish for their efforts in putting the camp togethger, along with Maggie Jones for her shopping and catering. Maggie provided the squad with hot dinners and rolls for lunch with cake, hot chocolates and other snacks.

Thank you to all the parents that assisted with cooking, lunch making, cleaning and ferrying juniors to training and to all the juniors for their washing up each day and cleaning on departure. A great team effort. We wish the squad all the best in Ballarat.

Youth prevailed at Garingal's annual Goanna event on Sunday at Macquarie Uni, where participants faced a host of decisions on top of the usual route choice conundrums.

Ewan Shingler (Big Foot) pipped Sophie Jones (Uringa) by eight seconds in a sprint to the finish to take out the GeckO (4km), while Garingal's Duncan Currie was a clear three-minute winner over Ewan's mum Paula (BF) in the DraGOn (6.6km).

In the blue ribbon GOanna (8.8km), GO star Glenn Horrocks won for the second year in a row (and backed up his recent triumph at WHO's Turkey Trot) with a 1m13s victory on clubmate Jeremy Fowler. Andrew Brown (BF) was third.

In each of the 3 races (with one big mass start) there was a box of 4 controls that could be done in any order, and some forks (where you had to visit a or b). In addition, on the GOanna you could skip two other controls, while the DraGOn and GeckO offered one skip. While the usual orienteering post-mortem is about route choice, at the Goanna it's all about the other choices: which fork? which skip? which order for the box?

While Ewan skipped #4, Sophie omitted the very last control - so the NSW Schools team buddies converged on the finish from different angles - with Ewan getting the gold after finishing second the two previous years. Airdrie Long (GO) was third.

Tom Kennedy (GO), the youngest of his family, pulled a swifty to pip older brother Alex for third in the DraGOn. Tom was not going to skip any controls (he's building up his fitness for the Aus champs in September) until he hit #11 at the pipe. Spotting an unmarked clearing beside the M2 fence, he powered through, decided to skip #12 and took bragging rights at the dinner table for the first time!

Unfortunately, due to concerns about water levels following a deluge last week, course setter Ian Jessup had to forego a lovely cluster of 4 controls on the northern side of Lane Cove River that would have posed a very tough physical, mental and navigational challenge for the two longer courses.

See the Eventor page for results and course maps.

Also on Sunday, Mountain Devils staged a double header MTBO (mountain bike orienteering event) at Belanglo State Forest with a 5km sprint followed by a 10km middle distance score event.

The weather was cold and foggy, with the temperature at 9am hovering around 4 degrees Celsius! The sun emerged around midday, producing a beautiful windless mid-winter day, just in time for the post-race barbecue.

Results are on Eventor. Thanks to Michael Roylance for this report and the picture.