HIGH PERFORMANCE REPORT

Changes have brought Success

Mike Dowling, OA Director, High Performance

IT is now three years since I took on the role of Director, High Performance on the Board of Orienteering Australia. It is three years that have flown by and in that time we have seen a number of great things happen on the high performance front in Australia. We have seen Australians achieve gold medals in all the three World Championships we contest through the brilliant efforts of Adrian Jackson and Hanny Allston; we have seen a highly successful hosting of the 2004 World MTBO Championships; we have seen the successful adoption of regular trans-Tasman competition with our Bushrangers team; we have seen the development of the junior division as a part of our National League; we have seen a number of our former elite orienteers become involved in coaching to pass on their vast depth of experience to the next generation of elite orienteers and we are all looking forward with a sense of great anticipation to what promises to be a superb Junior World Championships in Dubbo next year. In order to build on our successes over these last three years I believe there are some fundamentals we as an Orienteering community, with a stake in seeing our young competitors prominent on the world stage, need to continue to work on. Among these are building a desire for more of our younger orienteers to take on the sport as a lifestyle choice with a strong interest in being a high performance competitor; building the number of our JWOC representatives who move into senior ranks and become regular members of their state National League teams as a basis point for their potential as future national representatives in either the Bushrangers or WOC teams; building the depth and participation of state teams in the National League; continuing to build our coaching infrastructure at all levels as an underpinning support mechanism for individuals to improve their Orienteering; building the number of people keen and enthusiastic in wanting to take MTBO on as a pathway to international representation; and most importantly continuing to seek out extra financial resources to lessen the load on both individuals and member states in the high performance arena. Many of these areas are not the sole domain of any one person or organisational group within the Australian orienteering community. It requires a shared community partnership between stakeholders from the Board of Orienteering Australia, our member state associations and down to the local orienteering community through their individual club members and structures. I believe this sense of shared community is growing as I see our National League continuing to develop as a key plank in continuing to build our international competitiveness.

National League Developments

An important aspect of the continuing development of our National League program is a number of proposals that will be considered at the Orienteering Australia National Conference as this edition hits the streets. One of these will be a proposal to rename the current National Orienteering League the Australian Orienteering Series. What does this mean? Existing individual-based divisions will still exist but within this there will now be four national league team competitions of open men, open women, junior men and junior women. What are the advantages of this? It enables states that have greater strength in part of their high performance group to gain greater recognition for those athletes through their successes. For example, Tasmania is very strong in open women but not so strong in open men thus allowing the women to gain recognition in their own right; and Western Australia is strong in junior women but not so strong in junior men. It mirrors the structures of National Leagues in other sports where teams are based on gender. It will provide states that have particular strengths in a group to use this as a means to promote those successes in the media rather than for it to be subsumed within the existing broader team structures. With consolidation of all national championship formats into one week from 2008, this provides an ideal opportunity to have a fresh look at the structure of the National League (Orienteering Series) program. The national program has two principal aims in my view; one is to provide a high level domestic competition for our high performance orienteers and the other is to showcase the athleticism and challenges of high level orienteering to both the broader orienteering community and the wider general public This second point is one where we have an opportunity to reinvigorate the existing ASC Galaxy Sprint race that is an annual feature of the existing National League program. The aim is for it to become a Cup type event held over two races on consecutive days post Easter 3 Days. In some ways it would be like a mirror of the highly successful Swiss Post Finance Cup in Switzerland. The focus will be on fast paced visible orienteering, in a readily media accessible area, the offering of a level of prize money not yet seen in Australian orienteering and the maximising of participation by our best orienteers.

MTBO National Series In 2007?

With the changes to the National League structures MTBO is making some great strides as well. In 2007 we will have the inaugural Oceania MTBO Championships hosted by Victoria in March. That is a sure sign of the growing maturity of MTBO as a separate discipline within the wider Orienteering community. Recognition should be acknowledged here of the central role Victoria’s Blake Gordon has made in the development of MTBO. In addition, it is hoped there will also be the introduction of a formal national MTBO series that mirrors that of our well established foot-o National Series in 2007. As I write the MTBO High Performance Management Group is beginning the process of formulating the exact nature of the Series but it would be likely to encompass the Oceania Championships, national championships events and possibly one of the state championships series.

Identity For Our JWOC Team

We have the Bushrangers and the Boomerangs but our JWOC team is yet to have an identity. With Australia hosting JWOC in 2007 what a great time to launch an identity for our team. Have a bright idea just waiting to burst out!!!! Send your suggestion by December 31st to your HP Director via email at mdowling@tassie.net.au. The nominee of the successful team identity will receive a $50 open order on their local orienteering gear shop.