EDITORIAL

Too many WOC’s?

WITH the IOF moving to schedule World Championships in all disciplines every year, are there now too many WOC’s? Certainly both Austria and New Zealand think so.

Austria’s federation President, Fritz Woitsch, wrote in their magazine OEFOL that in 2004 there were nine WOC’s and two European Championships which overextended the financial resources of the Austrian Federation. He thinks the elite calendar seems to be overloaded with championship events.

New Zealand certainly agrees. They argued in the IOF Council that scheduling WOC’s every year would significantly disadvantage small and distant member countries. The NZ team at WOC 2004 was seriously depleted though they do plan to send a full team to WOC in Japan this year.

Australia is one of those small and distant countries. In 2005 there will be teams going to JWOC in Switzerland, WOC in Japan and WMTB-O in Slovakia. The IOF is also encouraging regional events such as the recent Oceania Championships.

How does all this affect our financial resources? Will we be able to fund such frequent representative team travel in future years? Fortunately, we don’t send teams to the Ski-O WOC and JWOC events. Are the annual WOC’s favouring the richer Orienteering nations which can afford to send teams to all events?

There’s also the issue of who will host all these Championships. Switzerland will hold two JWOC’s this year. Other countries are hosting World Championships in successive years – and then there are the annual WMOC events. I foresee a time, not too far distant, when the IOF will run out of countries willing (and financially able) to host all these WOC’s.

Circulation up

As we move into 2005 it is clear that participation and membership in Orienteering continues to grow. Evidence for this is that, since I took over as Editor, the circulation of this magazine has increased by nearly 5% over just three editions. I don’t claim any responsibility for that. The increasing membership is due to the efforts of the many volunteer event organisers who are attracting new members to our sport.

In this edition you will read about some of the innovations our organisers have brought to Orienteering in recent times - a Maze-O promotional event in Newcastle; the first Northern Territory Championships; and how the booming participation rates for Power Walkers in Park & Street-O events are now being spun off into Bush-O events.

You’ll also read of route choices by the men’s Elite placegetters in the 2004 AUS Championships. My thanks to Dave Shepherd and Warren Key for providing such detailed accounts.

Your letters

One (minor) concern I have is the lack of letters from you for this edition. In this age of constant communication where were you all? I always welcome your feedback on the content of the magazine (my e-mail address is on Page 2) and there are many issues on which I am sure you would like to air your feelings and ideas. Take the opportunity – put pen to paper or finger to keyboard and write in to the next edition.

Meantime, I hope you find this edition as good a read as ever.

Good navigating,

Mike Hubbert, Editor

Next issue

1 June 2005 Contributions deadlines

Time-sensitive: 20 May All other contributions: 13 May

VICTORINOX AWARD

THIS month’s award goes to a regular contributor to The Australian Orienteer, Gillian Woodward.

Gillian’s series of articles on Nutrition have been appearing in the magazine since June 2000 and have been a source of information and inspiration to many.

Gillian is a Practising Dietician and has been providing advice in the field for 25 years. She‘s been an orienteer since 1984 and endeavours to practice what she preaches nutrition-wise. She enjoys convincing sporting people of the potential to enhance their performance by improving dietary habits.

Gillian is a worthy winner of the Victorinox award and we hope to read many more articles from her in the future.

She receives a Victorinox Voyager with 20 tools and features including a watch/alarm/timer, retail value $109.95.

for stockists call 1800 209 999 www.victorinox.com