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HIGH PERFORMANCE REPORT
A good year for our High Performance athletes
WITH the 2005 competition season drawing to a close as I write this column it is a timely point to look back upon the year that was. By all measures 2005 has been a very good year for our High Performance athletes.
In the National League the Canberra Cockatoos took out the senior division from the Victorian Nuggets in a team competition that was not decided until the final round held in conjunction with the Australian relay Championships in Tasmania. Even here the result was uncertain until the final legs of the relays when events conspired to take the Victorians out of the frame. In the junior division it was fantastic, from a national development standpoint, to see Western Australia take out their first national title. With Queensland taking out the national schools championships it was very heartening from a national perspective to see two States achieve successes that have traditionally been dominated by States from the South East central axis and bodes well for the continued national development of Orienteering.
On the international front we have seen some fantastic performances this year. Earlier in the year David Brickhill-Jones produced an outstanding performance to take a silver medal in a round of the World Cup in England showing what a competitive international orienteer he is.
At the Junior World Championships in Switzerland we collectively saw our most competitive overall performance for a long time. Hanny Allston became the first junior female Australian athlete to medal with a bronze in the Middle-distance and Julian Dent came oh-so-close with a 4th in the Long-distance. Julian had previously finished 8th in the Middle-distance a couple of days earlier. With their representation in the senior WOC team as well, Hanny and Julian certainly lead the way as the new generation of high quality international orienteers to wear Australian colours. Also the girl’s team of Hanny, Erin Post and Jasmine Neve put in a superb effort to place 7th in the JWOC relays.
At the World Championships in Japan, which were a very tough WOC by any measure, we saw our first ever podium finish with Hanny placing 6th in the Long-distance in what was a magnificent effort in such physically demanding conditions. Her effort topped the placing of Troy de Hass a couple of days earlier in the Sprint-distance with a 7th place that was oh-so-close to a medal winning run. Another great highlight of the WOC was the effort of Tracy Bluett to place 13th in the Middle-distance in a return to international competition following the birth of daughter Tiia. The low point of the team was the failure of all the men to record a finish in the Long-distance race.
At the MTBO World Championships in Slovakia Adrian Jackson again showed why he is one of the world’s best orienteers in this format of Orienteering with a 3rd in the Long-distance and an 8th in the Middle-distance. Queensland’s Anna Sheldon took another step up in MTBO with a podium finishing 6th in the Middledistance and also an 8th in the Long-distance to undoubtedly show she is Queensland’s most successful orienteer in international competition.
In concert with the review of the operations of Orienteering in Australia as a result of the changed funding allocation by the Australian Sports Commission the Board of OA has decide upon a new direction for high performance coaching and management. As this issue hits the letterboxes of Australian orienteers we will be in the process of appointing a person to lead our High Performance program in a position called Head Coach. The central role of the Head Coach will be to work with both national team coaches and state National League coaches to improve both the quality of coaching and the competitive outcomes of aspiring high performance athletes. In addition, it is anticipated that the Head Coach will have a vital role in working with our National Training Centre partner, the ACT Academy of Sport, to continue to build on the role of the Orienteering program at ACTAS as a leader in coach and athlete development for Orienteering.
Our new coaching structure is set out below.
Coaching Structure High Perfomnce
Head Coach
Mens Coach Womens Coach Bushrangers Coach JWOC Coach MTBO Coach
National League State Coaches JWOC Support Coach MTBO Support Coach
Individual & Club Coaches
New National Coaches
The Board of OA was delighted to appoint Grant Bluett and Gareth Candy as joint National Junior Coaches for the period 2006-07. With Australia hosting JWOC in 2007 both Gareth and Grant are enthusiastically working to build on the team successes at JWOC this year for the 2006 JWOC in Lithuania and then onto Dubbo in 2007. In addition, it’s also time to acknowledge the work and effort of retiring National Junior Coach Paul Pacqué who has been in the role for a number of years. Thanks Paul for all your valuable work with our juniors and you’ve left our junior program in a sound state.
On the MTBO front we are delighted to re-appoint Kay Haarsma as national coach. Kay has done much to date in working with our MTBO athletes and is a passionate advocate of the MTBO high performance program.
With regard to our senior Foot O team we are currently in the process of determining the coaching positions with a change of focus and moving to a dual male and female athlete centred coaching team. With the continued rapid growth in the international competitive depth of Foot Orienteering we felt it was the right time to have two coaches working with specific groups of our athletes to maintain and build on our international results of 2005. It also appropriate to thank our national coach for the last two years in Jim Russell for all his dedicated work with the senior team. Jim always puts in more than the minimum as a coach and often goes beyond the call of duty.
Thanks Jason & Nev
The end of 2005 will see the end of an era in Orienteering with Nev Bleakley retiring as Manager, Coaching & Officiating and Jason McCrae finishing up as Manager, High Performance to take on a new career direction upon finishing his masters degree. I would like to extend a sincere personal vote of thanks to Jason and Nev for the dedicated, passionate and enthusiastic commitment they have put into furthering Australian Orienteering in their roles. They have done so much for Orienteering and I wish them well for wherever the future takes them.
Strategic Plan 2006-2008
The approval of our new strategic plan for the next three-year period will be currently under consideration at the Annual Conference of OA. As has been mentioned before in this column the Plan is the
guiding document of our HP program and as such belongs to all our stakeholders; the member States of OA, athletes, coaches and the wider community of orienteers. The document is a dynamic one and over its next three-year life will undoubtedly undergo changes and refinements as circumstances change and evolve. Why not take the time to get hold of a copy from your State association and see how you could make a positive contribution to developing our High Performance program? Or you can contact me at: 17 High St, Bellerive 7018. Tel (03) 6244 71773 Email mdowling@tassie.net.au
Orienteering Australia – National Training Centre
Interview with OA Manager-High Performance, Jason McCrae
Australian, David Brickhill-Jones, has announced that from the beginning of 2006 he will elect to compete for Britain in international Orienteering events. He holds dual citizenship and says his reasons for making the change are the closer proximity of training and coaching assistance to his present home in Norway. He says he deeply regrets having to make the decision and will always be grateful for the assistance given him by Orienteering coaches and administrators in Australia. The Australian Orienteer spoke with Jason McCrae, the soon-to-retire Manager-High Performance for Orienteering Australia.
AO: David Brickhill-Jones (or “BJ”) has been on the verge of achieving great things for some years. How much of a blow to OA’s High Performance program is BJ’s decision?
JMcC: BJ’s decision is without a doubt very disappointing for all involved in OA HP. We endeavour to provide the best possible support to our elite orienteers within the resources we have available and when someone moves to another country essentially, as I understand it, because he can be provided with better support then it is a blow to those of us trying our best to support the best Australian orienteers. It highlights what I often find myself saying in Orienteering circles - OA spends more than 50% of its budget on supporting High Performance (HP) athletes and activities yet from an athlete’s perspective it wouldn’t even cover 5% of their expenses, especially one such as BJ who is trying to get the best out of himself by living and training overseas. Now having said all that, BJ’s departure provides other Australian elite orienteers with opportunities that they might not have had in the past and I know we have plenty of elites training hard, competing hard and they will relish any extra opportunities that come their way.
AO: BJ has been successful in some recent Park World Tour events. Do you think that success will translate to future success for him in WOC events?
JMcC: Probably. I thought that when he was competing for us and changing to Britain is not going to change my opinion on that. BJ has a very competitive nature and I think that’s really important in driving a person to do all the hard work and training that is required to get good results at an international level. He’s still got work to do and skills to master before he gets there but he’s made improvements every year I’ve known him so one would think that will continue.
AO: The IOF has rules allowing orienteers to change country allegiance but do you think orienteers should do so unless there is some dire political or social reason?
JMcC: Not sure on that one. I mean where do you draw the line? What is an appropriately ‘dire’ political or social reason? BJ has a pommy passport so I would say technically that’s enough. When I looked up the IOF rules all they seem to say is that you can only run for one country per year with no mention of having to hold citizenship or anything.
AO: OA has made quite a substantial investment in support for BJ over the years, haven’t they?
JMcC: BJ has received as much support as we are able to provide our elites. He had been supported to attend both JWOC and WOC races and this year was added to the High Performance Group (HPG) which receives OA’s top level of funding. Having said that, as mentioned previously, the amount of money we have spent on BJ would not have covered 5% of his total Orienteering expenses to get to the level he is at today.
AO: How does that compare to the support he will be provided running for Britain?
JMcC: Well, by way of example, a member of the HPG who also made the WOC team to Japan in 2005 would have had half their airfare to WOC paid for by OA plus entry, accommodation and expenses during the WOC week and had access to a coach, manager, assistant manager and physio during the 10 days of WOC. Additionally if they went to the Australian team WOC training camp in Japan in March they would have received $900 to cover their expenses, mind you that wouldn’t have covered half their costs in an expensive place like Japan, especially when you include airfare. Also if an elite had run any of the World Cup races in Italy or England, as BJ did, they would have had no support and would have had to pay themselves for their entry, accommodation, airfare, the lot! I don’t know the details of how Britain supports their athletes but my understanding after doing a bit of asking round is that this year WOC, World Cup and a pre-WOC training camp were all fully paid for, including airfare. Additionally they have already had fully-funded training camps to future WOC areas such as Denmark and the Ukraine and have a training camp, again fully-funded, to South Africa at some point during the northern winter. They generally have two coaches and a Sport Psychologist travel with the team whereas we only provide support staff at WOC and the training camp in March. I don’t know if that is all correct but when it comes to funding and supporting elites we are in a different ballpark.
AO: Many of our top orienteers choose to live and compete in Europe. We see that in other sports too. Does OA have plans for attracting our top orienteers back to Australia or is it best if they stay in Europe?
JMcC: In an ideal world OA would support our best to live and train in Australia for 75% of the year and live, compete and train in Europe between about April and August each year. That would enable Australia’s elite to live here, build a life here and train with the support of facilities like the National Training Centre in Canberra and their coaches and peers in their home state while still getting the benefits of competing against the world’s best in the different terrains overseas and prepare appropriately for WOC each year. Unfortunately that is just not going to happen so athletes have to make a choice about where they live with often better ‘life’ benefits such as family, friends and job available here and better O benefits available in Europe with Scandinavian clubs able to provide more comprehensive coaching, training, competition and financial support for Orienteering than we can.
