ADVENTURE RACING

Orienteers prove too good in TEVA Adventure Race

Acold Sunday morning last October saw nearly 200 competitors take part in the 3rd Teva Adventure Series race in Macedon Ranges. Teams made up of three competitors confronted a 7km foot orienteering course, a 25km MTB-O course, a 1km run up Mt. Macedon and several novelty events. Team Silva made up of highly ranked Mountain Bike orienteers, Adrian Jackson and Alex Randall and evergreen Jim Russell crossed the finish line in 3hrs 47min - way ahead of the next placegetters in the Men’s section. To prove that orienteers excel in adventure type races where navigation is part of the challenge, a VOA girls team of Jasmine Neve, Kathryn Ewels and Kirsten Fairfax finished miles ahead in the Women’s section and third overall beating all but Team Silva and one other men’s team. An amazing achievement after their 2nd place in the world rogaining championships.

CityChase returns to Sydney

Urban adventurers from Australia and around the world are gearing up for the return of CityChase to Sydney on 17th March, when the city will once again be turned into a giant obstacle course to kick off the first leg of the largest urban adventure competition on earth. CityChase was created and launched in Canada in 2004. The concept made an immediate impact on the country, expanding to a national event series in Canada’s nine largest cities in 2005, and the competition was turned into a successful, national prime-time TV series. The 2007 Volvo CityChase is a part urban obstacle course, part scavenger hunt race that is open to anyone over the age of 18, and features teams of two racing around the city to complete a series of unique physical, mental, and humorous challenges and return to the finish line in the fastest time. Specific plans are strictly under wraps, but previous races have pushed competitors to their physical and mental limits, including everything from eating live crickets, to swinging on a flying trapeze, to jumping out of a plane at over 10,000 feet. Although the sport of urban adventure racing is relatively new to Australia, the winners of the inaugural 2006 Volvo CityChase, Ben Rattray and Andrew Hill, went on to upset nine other teams from across the globe to win the CityChase World Championships, held over 33 hours across 30km of the city of Chicago. “Australians have proven their enthusiasm for this unique style of urban adventure racing and the response we received from the first Australian event is proof that there is a huge demand for this type of activity as an alternative to more traditional events like marathons,” says Nick Jelinek, the Canadian creator of the CityChase concept. “We are expecting as many as 500 teams to sign up for a chance to represent Australia at the World Championships to be held in a mystery city against the respective champions from Canada, England, France, USA, Singapore and Portugal.”

Kirsten Fairfax, Kathryn Ewels and Jasmine Neve finished miles ahead in the Women’s section and third overall in the TEVA Adventure race

Team Silva: Jim Russell, Adrian Jackson and Alex Randall, comfortable winners in the TEVA Adventure race

Executive Matters

Gareth Candy

Annual Conference

With some new faces on the Orienteering Australia Board this year, there were many new ideas presented at the Annual Conference, held in Canberra in December. In his President’s Report Bob Mouatt commented on the changes in the last 10 years of Orienteering Australia, it highlighted the good job which has been done in keeping our organisation up to date in an evolving and changing environment for sports in Australia. It was also a reminder that we must remain vigilant and continue to evolve to ensure our competitiveness in the modern sports marketplace. The new ideas and open debate at this years Conference is a positive sign that Orienteering Australia continues to head in the right direction. All the attendees at the Conference were split into discussion groups on the first morning to look at two important issues, memberships and the future of high performance. The memberships discussion was lead by Director (Development) Ben Rattray and looked at impediments to becoming a member, what the benefits are of being a member, why we have memberships and what we should charge for being a member. The discussion was far ranging and included discussions of a national based approach to memberships, tiered structure of membership, providing services to beginners, event fees versus membership fees, the importance of social interaction and competitive pathways for junior members. The ideas were collected by the Director (Development) and will be presented as a major item at the upcoming Development Conference being held in Canberra in May. The High Performance discussion was lead by Director (High Performance) Mike Dowling and explored a vision for High Performance orienteering for 2015. Keeping depth of competition in our National League events, both junior and senior was seen as being very important. Promotion and presentation were seen as important issues with suggestions that we should hold more events aimed at promotion, holding them close to major population areas and promote local orienteers and/or other local athletes who are participating in the event. Coaching was identified as an important issue and particularly the need to develop more coaches to a High Performance level and to encourage our High Performance athletes to have a more positive attitude towards coaching. In management and administration a new Junior Sport Policy and a new Risk Management Policy were adopted after much hard work in developing them by Bob Mouatt. A new Event Levies system was adopted at the conference for 2007 after the concept of an all-events levy was endorsed at the 2006 AGM, the new levy system was developed by Director (Finance) Blair Trewin. In International matters Hugh Cameron (IOF Vice President) informed the Conference that Orienteering had been unsuccessful in its application for the inclusion of Ski Orienteering in the 2014 Winter Olympics. The conference was also informed of all the developments at an international level from the IOF Council, Congress and Non-European Nations meeting held in Denmark in conjunction with the World Orienteering Championships. A paper on the future of APOC was presented at the Conference by David Hogg who also announced that he is stepping down from the position of APOC Secretariat. All at the Conference and the whole of Orienteering Australia would like to acknowledge all the work that David has done in this position and the great benefit it has been to Orienteering Australia. The major Technical items under discussion and which were adopted were Andy Hogg’s (Director Technical) Age Classes proposal which recommended decreasing the number of compulsory age groups at championship events and a proposal to eliminate membership requirements for participating at Australian Championships. The conference endorsed Orienteering Australia and some State Associations to look at expanding carnivals from 2011 onwards to include major international events such as World Cup or World Championship carnivals. Of interest to many orienteers will be the new guidelines for non-elite rankings and a new system for awarding the Silva Medal (for orienteer of the year) which were adopted. Each day of the Australian 3-Days (excl. the Prologue), Australian Championships (Sprint, Middle and Long) and the State Championships conducted at the Australian Championships will form the basis of the calculations occasionally with other major events (eg Oceania Championships) included. For the non-elite rankings the best three performances will count, for the Silva Medal points are accumulated by completing six events in an A or E class from M/W16 upwards. The Director (Special Projects) Robin Uppill updated the Conference on High Tech and website developments including progress involving an online entry system and online results database. In Development a new Sponsorship Policy was adopted to formalise a collaborative approach between Orienteering Australia, State Associations and major carnival organisers towards attracting sponsorship to our major events, the policy is now available on the Orienteering Australia website. The Director (Development) also presented a Licensing (membership) proposal which was discussed and then deferred to the Development Conference for further discussion and refinement. The importance of schools orienteering was noted by the council and a motion that Orienteering Australia contribute an amount equal to five days of relief teaching to the position of National Secretary of Schools Orienteering was carried. This is a very important step in ensuring that the hugely successful annual Australian Schools Championships continue well into the future. Robin Simson is thanked for his proactive approach in ensuring that this vital part of Orienteering in Australia continues to be run successfully well into the future. My next article for The Australian Orienteer will be as Head Coach, not Executive Officer, but I would like to thank Orienteering Australia and particularly the OA Board for all their help and support over the last year as I have learnt the ropes in this position. This experience will be invaluable as I move into the High Performance side of operations.

Orienteering Australia photo archive

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