President’s Report

Alot of good things happened in Australian orienteering in 2019. The Oceania Championships were the best-attended event in Australia for many years (apart from WMOC or events adjacent to it), and our other major events continue to go from strength to strength. We also have outstanding achievements to celebrate, with Aston Key becoming our second Junior World Champion with his win in the sprint in Denmark.

The sport continues to be a generally healthy state. Total participation numbers fluctuate, but in general the patterns of recent years continue, with national events and those close to where people live doing well, those in between those categories (like the traditional OY-type events and state championships) finding the scene more challenging. This is consistent with trends in many parts of the sporting world. The growth at the grassroots can’t be taken for granted, though, and although the formal programs (many of them funded through Sport Australia money) have been important, even more important has been the commitment of many volunteers to develop the sport at the grass roots.

Particularly important to our future is strengthening our junior programs. Many of the State Associations are doing excellent work in this area and I know they have it as a high priority. One of the key national programs in strengthening junior orienteering is the Australian Schools Championships. Since Orienteering Australia took over full responsibility for the event in 2018, we have been looking at how to make the event more inclusive while still preserving the essence of the teambased competition which has made it so successful over the last 30 years. Some moves in this respect were made last year, and more are coming this year.

Aston’s gold medal (and other outstanding results that week) was the obvious highlight of the season from a performance point of view, but there were plenty of other results to be pleased with too. We had our best relay performance for some years at WOC (with Henry McNulty coming back with the lead pack), Aston finished the year with a couple of excellent World Cup performances, and our junior women showed considerable promise, notably Ella Cuthbert beating all the seniors as well as the juniors at the Oceania Sprint Championships. We continue to look at what can be done to improve this pipeline, including strengthening coaching at both national and state level. There is also work ongoing to revitalise the National Orienteering League, although it will be next year before the changes are fully implemented.

Our regional connections are important in both our junior development – as indicated by New Zealand’s regular presence here – and in giving our older athletes opportunities. Our relationship with New Zealand has been close for some time, something indicated by both the excellent New Zealand turnout at Oceania (which we will no doubt reciprocate next year) and the strong Australian presence at their sprint week early this year. There are signs of development elsewhere in the region too; we are hoping that New Caledonia will finally be able to affiliate properly as an Oceania member soon, Singapore is starting to develop a strong urban orienteering scene, and there were even reports of some activity in Kiribati (probably not too many contours on their maps).

Sport Australia (or, under its former name, the Australian Sports Commission) has provided good support to Australian orienteering over the years (even if our sport generally isn’t amenable to the facility and infrastructure grants which have been in the news so much lately). There has been a shift in emphasis in the last year or two from participation programs delivered at state level, to national programs. We’re taking advantage of this as an opportunity to work on programs which will strengthen our national infrastructure, such as developing a Sporting Schools product for high schools (and a national product for primary schools) that those running programs will be able to implement easily, and making some long-awaited updates to our coaching and controlling curricula as part of expanding the skills base of our volunteers.

I would like to close, as always, by thanking everyone who does so much to make our sport happen in Australia. This includes my fellow members of the Board and Orienteering Australia’s staff, but also those who make State Associations and clubs function, as well as the hundreds of volunteers who make a myriad of events happen every week. The sport could not exist without you and we are all grateful.

Blair Trewin

President