AUST 3-DAYS
Report by Blair Trewin
T
ROY DE HAAS, contesting his first major event in Australia for several years, made a triumphant return when he took out the Australian 3Days at Jindabyne over Easter, beating the strongest field seen domestically since the 2000 World Cup. He set his victory up on Day 2, when an outstanding run from him combined with scrappy ones by his nearest rivals to give him a sevenminute margin on the day. He lost some of that on the last day to the impressive Julian Dent, but still had enough in hand to score by a minute. It wasn’t looking quite so promising for de Haas after the Day 1. The Prologue was interesting in its own right – Grant Bluett coming from behind to register a narrow win, whilst former Australian steeplechase representative Martin Dent missed an opportunity for a breakthrough win when he missed a control – but, as usual, it didn’t resolve much at the
Triumphant return home for Troy de Haas Troy de Haas getting plenty of crowd support as he runs in to win the Australian 3-Days. Photo: Peter Cusworth
Julian Dent had a great 3-Days to finish a close second to Troy. Photo: Bob Mouatt
front end. Day 1 didn’t resolve a great deal either, but it featured a good battle between Dave Shepherd and Julian Dent, narrowly won by Shepherd. The two were tied at the front going into the long day. The early controls caught a few unawares, with Rob Walter, Tom Quayle, and de Haas all losing time in the first three, and de Haas dropped further with successive one-minute mistakes at 14 and 15, a stretch which most of the rest of the field were clean on. He was nearly five minutes off the pace on Saturday night in tenth place, and looked in a lot of trouble.
All that changed on the Sunday. Bluett, who had been there or thereabouts all weekend, again led early, but dropped two minutes at 7. That gave de Haas the lead and he never let it slip. Julian Dent was initially close, but mistakes at 9 and 13 saw him drift backwards, and de Haas had caught him to the tune of six minutes after dominating the long 15th leg. That leg also marked the end of the challenge of Rob Walter, who had held the gap at about two min. after losing that amount on 6. After catching up, de Haas was content to sit on Dent until breaking away on the climb into 23, and went on to JUNE 2005 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 23
