NATIONAL LEAGUE

Championships eliminating her from contention. Julian Dent kept his hopes alive through there, but needed to win the Australian Long Championships, and didn’t. In the Junior competition, Ryan Smyth also put on a late charge, winning the last four rounds to give himself a chance. He was, however, coming from a fair way back, and Simon Uppill wrapped the title up when he was second to Smyth in his only start of the carnival, the Australian Cockatoos run away with National League Long Championships. Kellie Whitfield did not put together the strings of victories that the other individual winners THE Canberra Cockatoos ran away with the 2006 National League, giving them their third win in a row and their did, but she was consistent enough to wrap up the title with a race in hand, despite only winning twice in a season where twelfth in 13 years. In contrast to 2005, when they took a there were eight separate race winners. Vanessa Round, who thin women’s team into the season’s final week and were won four events out of five in WA, might have got closer had almost caught by the end, in 2006 they were the only state she run more than six rounds. able to consistently field a full and strong team through the Blair Trewin Australian Championships carnival, in which they achieved the maximum possible 140 points, and they finished with a record winning margin of 88 points. Queensland Cyclones win Junior National League The main issue which was resolved in the final week was the destiny of second place. The Victorian Nuggets started the week 10 points behind the NSW Ultimax Stingers, but were never able to make any real inroads. They might have had a chance had they beaten NSW in both Relays, but whilst the women did the necessary in difficult circumstances, the men never looked like getting close. South Australia’s Southern Arrows climbed to fourth after a solid week. The Queensland Cyclones took their first title when they were comfortable winners of the Junior division. They were helped by having two rounds at home against thin fields, but their depth, the product of a strong junior program, meant that they would have won even without that home-ground advantage. The ACT Cockatoos edged out Victoria’s Nuggets for second. Dave Shepherd and Grace Elson took out the senior individual titles, as expected at the start of the week, but both had to withstand strong challenges. In a remarkable coincidence, AT the recent Australian Championships Carnival in WA the young Queensland Cyclones won their first both competitions featured challengers who had been injured ever JNOL Trophy. This was not a chance event and the for most of the season, were only going to run the minimum Queenslanders hope that it’s the forerunner of many more eight rounds (and therefore couldn’t put a foot wrong), and trophies. who swept all before them in the early races in WA. Jo Allison In 2005, as we savoured the success of the Queensland was the first to falter, her fifth place at the Australian Sprint Schools team, we watched the presentation of the JNOL trophy to WA with some envy. Following on from this event the Cyclones Coach (Geoff Peck) and the Manager (Terry Cavanagh) determined to put great effort into taking out the JNOL trophy in 2006. One strategy was to put in an application for a NOL event, which given previous seasons almost seemed to guarantee success at the junior level. What we did not realise was that the Queensland NOL event would become a major world ranking event, with high senior and junior participation, and that the other states would increase their participation levels in junior events throughout the season.

QLD Champs – a Neumann family affair

The elites provided the bestcontested classes at the Queensland Championships. Elsewhere, it was mainly a race amongst the locals, with the highlight being the extent to which the Neumann clan made its presence felt. They provided 14 entries, for ten placings and six wins. The closest A class over the two days was M35. Lance Read and Tim McIntyre were separated by less than a minute on each day, but each time it was Read who came out on top to secure a narrow win.

Arthur, Casanova take out SA Champs

Bruce Arthur and Susanne Casanova took out the open classes at the South Australian Championships on 6 August. Both are multiple winners of this event. Casanova was untroubled in finishing 14 minutes clear of her sister Jenny, but Arthur was made to work hard by fellow adopted Victorian Torgeir Watne, who finished just over two minutes down in second. Simon Uppill, slowed by a bruised heel, completed the placings. W17-20A saw the return to competition of Rebecca Hembrow after a year out with injury. She was a minute ahead of Mallory Hughes, whilst Brett Merchant was four ahead of Tristan Lee in M1720. Close finishes were few and far between in other classes, with Rob Tucker’s two-minute win over Adrian Uppill in M55 perhaps the best of them. South Australia took out the SAVictoria Challenge, defeating the small Victorian contingent by 5 classes to 3. This is likely to be a better contest in 2007 when it takes place in conjunction with the Easter carnival.

NSW Champs – first major win for Briohny Davey

Briohny Davey took her first major title at senior level when she won the NSW Long-distance Championships, held on a highstandard gully-spur area near Braidwood. She took full advantage after favourites Jo Allison and Anna Quayle both struck major trouble at the second control. Allison recovered to take second place but could not get within six minutes of the winner, with Mace Neve in third. Returned WOC team members didn’t find the going any easier in M21A, with neither Dave Shepherd (who pulled out at halfway) nor Eric Morris in the placings. Rob Preston won a close battle with Andy Hogg, with Blair Trewin edging Morris out of third. Outside the open classes, perhaps the most significant news of the day was Julian Dent’s comeback; running unofficially on the M20 course, he ran easily the day’s fastest kilometre rate.

ACT Champs – Dent triumphs in a strong field

Julian Dent’s comeback continued when he won comfortably in the strongest men’s field in Australia this year at Honeysuckle Creek. Eight of the top-12 ranked in Australia were running, including the top four, but none were able to match Dent, who dominated with his speed despite some erratic sections. Grant Bluett was best of the rest, three minutes behind, with Dave Shepherd in third place. Anna Quayle won a fluctuating battle with Jo Allison. Neither had particularly clean runs and swapped the lead as the other lost time, but they did enough to be clear of the rest of the field. Quayle eventually came out on top, winning by just over a minute, with Allison Jones third in the first race after her return from Sweden.

TAS Champs – 20 years between titles for Paul Liggins

Twenty years after his first win, expatriate Tasmanian Paul Liggins took his second Tasmanian title at Littlechild Creek. He was closely challenged by young Tasmanians Lee Andrewartha and Ryan Smyth (who suffered from an overly ambitious route choice through the green early on), but came out on top by two minutes from Andrewartha. Smyth was another two minutes back in third place. Grace Elson was unchallenged in W21.

VIC Champs – Davey takes second title of season

Briohny Davey completed an excellent year with her second state title of the season, when she won the Victorian Championships at Mount Beckworth. Her nearest rival, Kathryn Ewels, got off to an unfortunate start when she took a wrong map and had to return to the start, but after getting within two minutes at #4 she never got any closer. Kirsten Fairfax was third after a steady run. Adrian Jackson established a useful lead from the start and was never headed. By the end of the first climb up Mount Beckworth, he had caught Jim Russell and the two were together for most of the rest of the race. They took the first two places. Simon Uppill, who had won impressively in Saturday’s Middledistance Championship, again ran well and was in strong contention for second before fading in the last kilometre. Elsewhere, Belinda Lawford, still a first-year W16, achieved a breakthrough result when she upset Clare Brownridge in W17-20A.

Early in the season we were able to balance our NOL/JNOL teams and some excellent performances from Kieran Sullivan, Peter Sheldon, Daniel Stott, Laurina Neumann and Ainsley Cavanagh saw us off to a great start. Easter was a bit of a disappointment for the boys with Kieran and James Sheldon scoring reasonably well and Laurina and Ainsley again keeping the girls at the top of the ladder. However, by the end of Easter week we were beginning to see an unexpected problem emerge. The Senior Cyclones began to disappear through injury and unavailability and for the rest of the season we were left to balance both NOL and JNOL by utilising our growing pool of talented juniors. In the second half of the season (in addition to our early performers) we managed to gain scores from Bridget Anderson, Grace Burrill, Rachael Effeney (a great newcomer, late in the year), Michelle Cantwell, Erin Wallace, Stephanie Strong, Ruth Burrill, Julia Sullivan, Brooke Pye, Simon Mee, Kelsey Dougall, Ben Freese, Matt McGuire, Julian Taylor, and Gary Flynn – making a team of twenty. Despite this depth the competition still required top performances in WA. Thanks to the great runs by Ollie, a shared load between Bridget, Grace, Rachael and Michelle and some solid relay performances we managed to achieve our goal. Both men and women finished 2nd but overall our team strength left us with a clear win by 20 points. This was a great team effort. Now, what about the future? As we are only “losing” Ainsley and Peter to the seniors next year we aim to be the first state to repeat the win. This will be extremely difficult without a home event and amid the high competition for places in Australia’s JWOC team for Dubbo. It will also take some careful planning and commitment because it is likely that we will be still struggling to field full teams in NOL and the balance will be difficult on occasions. However, it is essential that we keep developing our junior talent to enable us to achieve greater success in NOL in future years and we hope that other states will begin to fill all of their teams to increase the competition and to improve the standard of Orienteering in Australia.

Terry Cavanagh - Queensland Cyclones Manager