TALENT SEARCH

Orienteering ACT Invests in Talented Juniors

Neville Bleakley ACTAS Head Coach

The Initiative: Orienteering ACT has taken a bold step to invest in its emerging talent. It has arranged with ACT Academy of Sport to buy services designed to prepare talented orienteers aged 16-23 for the realities of life as high performance athletes. ACTAS Development Squad: The arrangement will see an Orienteering Development Squad formed at ACTAS in 2005. There’ll be a maximum of six members, each costing OACT $300 for a six-month program. The orienteer him/herself will bear the remaining cost of $85, although it is expected that – in most cases – that will be borne by the member’s local Orienteering club. ACTAS HP Squad: Entry criteria for the ACTAS scholarship program have been altered so that only those ACT orienteers who are in the OA national senior squad will be eligible to apply (or those who, in the opinion of the ACTAS selectors, will be able to achieve that in the next 18 months). The HP Squad will contain a maximum of eight members (although some allowance is made for additional overseas associate members). ACTAS orienteering scholarship holders must satisfy an 18-month residence qualification, and they must be Australian citizens (as the Head Coach found out when about to offer a 2005 scholarship to Canberra Cockatoo star, Stewart Fishwick, a British citizen studying at ANU). Differences: In the past the ACTAS squad could consist of a mix of seniors and juniors. ACT coaches found that arrangement caused problems for both groups. Existing HP orienteers need (no, they demand) training at a higher level, greater intensity and greater frequency than most emerging juniors can understand, much less participate in. They will also travel further to suitable competitions and training terrain. That has logistical implications for a squad. Also there are implications under NSW child protection laws if under-18s are taken into NSW, a fairly common occurrence for ACT orienteers. Realities: The reality of life in the HP lane is that an athlete gives a large part of his/her life over to sports performance. That “sacrifice” can take many forms such as careers put on hold, job opportunities not being taken, relationships put on the back burner, and so on. Any athlete who sets him/herself up to challenge those at the very top of their sport must achieve a balance of four essential areas: fitness, technical skill, mental preparation and mental “set”/lifestyle (including the way an athlete thinks about him/herself). All are important, although the relative importance will vary from athlete to athlete, and from time-to-time in an athlete’s life. The weakest link will let an athlete down under the pressure of constant training, or – worst of all - in the glare of high-level competition. There are countless examples of that in all sports, including Orienteering. Orienteering in Australia must recognized those issues, and do the best it can to help its high performers for the athletes’ own sake, if not to maximize the OA high performance dollar. Better Preparation: Emerging, talented juniors must be taught what all of the above means to them as an individual before they can make an informed decision to take the plunge into HP Orienteering. ACTAS Orienteering coaches have been aware of the challenges of that task for a long time. However, it was thought that by including juniors in the same squad as high performers, some of the HP lessons might “rub off” on them – by osmosis, as it were. Sometimes that happened, but in many more cases the situation became too intimidating. The talented junior tried his/her best but, in the end, quietly faded away from the scene, probably harboring feelings of guilt at “not making the grade”. Sometimes they left Orienteering altogether, more’s the pity. Orienteering cannot afford a talent drain. How many talented juniors have gone to Europe in the past 20 years to “try the circuit”, yet have come home disheartened, fading away from Orienteering. There will always be “casualties” in high-level sport, but they can be minimized by careful preparation – physically, technically and mentally. Competing in Europe is an essential part of high-level Orienteering, but Australia must do better to prepare its best. Orienteering ACT is to be commended for this initiative, which is one step on a long journey. Squad Arrangements: In the words of national senior coach Jim Russell, Orienteering needs places like ACTAS “to do the coaching things that we orienteers can’t do, for one reason or another”. So OACT turned to ACTAS to develop a six-month program that will expose selected ACT “juniors” (ages 16-23) to regular gym-based strength and conditioning, discussion groups on mental preparation, how to handle the media, how to manage their time, how to measure their fitness in terrain, how to recover from training and competition, drug issues in sport, and so on. They will not do technical training with ACTAS. That aspect will remain with the Blue Lightnings or the Canberra Cockatoos. The arrangement is shown in the following diagram:

HP Pathway

ACTAS HP Squad • Eligible only to those in National Senior Squad, or able to achieve that in 18 months • Must be resident in ACT, or ACTAS Overseas

Associate Scholarship holders • 12-month “holistic” program, commencing 1 Nov each year • Train with Canberra Cockatoos, but with some separate squad training sessions e.g. S&C in gym Conventional Pathway

Canberra Cockatoos • as per current arrangements

ACTAS Development Squad • Targets orienteers aged 16-23 who are ready and willing to undertake a holistic ACTAS program, including sessions on:

S&C (max 2 sessions per week), Nutrition, Sport psychology, Athlete Career Education, Testing • Max of six members • Payment of $385 per athlete for 6-month program • Must be compatible with HP program, so must be guided by the ACTAS Head Coach • Will remain a full member of the Canberra

Cockatoos or Blue Lightning squads Blue Lightnings • as per current arrangements

The 2005 ACTAS HP Squad has just been selected

Offers have gone out to eight orienteers: Jo Allison, Grant Bluett,

Allison Jones, Mace Neve, Tom Quayle, David Shepherd, Cassie

Trewin and Rob Walter, all of whom will be in ACT for significant parts of 2005. Interviews will be held to select members of the Talent Development Squad. Working Together: It’s not the first time that ACTAS has gone down this pathway with a State or National Sporting Organization. Most of the “bigger” sports already have such programs with ACTAS. It illustrates that there are benefits to be had in making partnerships with Institutes/Academies of Sport. Orienteering Tasmania found that with its ground-breaking Orienteering Talent Search Program conducted in conjunction with the Tasmanian Institute of Sport. Why reinvent the wheel?