HIGH PERFORMANCE REPORT

Changes to Manager and Coach positions

Mike Dowling, OA Director, High Performance

At the Annual General Meeting of Orienteering Australia over the Easter period in Burra, South Australia, member States unanimously approved a change of direction, or more so a return, to the structure of OA paid officers in the areas of high performance management and coaching & officiating development. As a result Orienteering Australia is in the process of seeking appointments for a Manager, High Performance and a Manager, Coaching & Officiating Development to take up duties from July 1st. In an agreement with the ACT Orienteering Association the new Manager, High Performance will be paid to assume some key duties on behalf of ACTOA. The effect of this will be that the Manager, High Performance will be employed on a three-days-a-week basis and the Manager, Coaching & Officiating Development will be employed on a one-day-a-week basis. In the review of OA operations in August 2005, and as a result of the loss of development funding from the Australian Sports Commission, a decision was made to restructure the OA Board and to attempt to manage with two paid part-time officers rather than the four that existed at that time. Time has shown that combining the previous roles of Manager, High Performance and Manager, Coaching & Officiating and passing some of those duties on to volunteers has meant that coach development in particular has suffered. The reality is that there is simply too much to do over too much of a breadth of areas for one single person to effectively manage as a single task model. In addition, coach development is a time intensive activity and in an era of time-challenged work and daily life it is too much to expect volunteers to effectively action such an important role in building competitive outcomes for all levels of orienteers. The financial outcome of this is that there will be no overall change to the OA budget situation or change to the total allocation for high performance and coaching activities. Additional resources will be put into the important area of coach development infrastructure. The consequence of this will require an overall reduction in financial support for national teams in the order of 10% in order to achieve a balanced budgetary outcome. This is an unfortunate situation for our many young people who spend their time and energy in seeking to be the best orienteers they can. However, that can never be truly achieved in isolation in my view. A comprehensive and well developed coach infrastructure that supports mentor coaches to work with athletes in any sport is vital for the health of that sport. A look at the number of active coaches working in Orienteering clearly shows that work is needed at a national level to build that coaching culture.

The Purpose Of Our High Performance Program

I am occasionally asked by interested orienteers as to what we are aiming to achieve in our high performance program. For the benefit of all orienteers it is appropriate to provide the following summary overview of our aims, which are to: • develop short and long-term plans for coaching and supporting national squads, and high performance athletes; • prepare and manage relevant budgets for the national High

Performance program; • manage the human resources required to prepare Australian teams for their respective world championships and other international competition; • co-ordinate a State-based system of mentor coaches to conduct training camps and to offer support for athletes in regional areas; • determine the composition of team leadership for forthcoming world championships, taking into account special team needs and/or particular priorities, available expertise, and long-term coaching plans; • foster the ideals of orienteering excellence amongst orienteers; • maintain a close working relationship with the ACT Academy of Sport as the National Training Centre in preparing Australian orienteers for international competition; and • support the development of coaching infrastructure at all levels of orienteering in Australia as a core aspect of improving High

Performance outcomes in international competition.

Best Wishes To Our World Championship Teams

By now all our 2007 World Championship teams have been announced. Those attending the Australian 3-Days in South Australia would have been very impressed with the depth and quality of competition in our junior ranks amongst those seeking to represent their country at JWOC in Dubbo in July. It is a healthy sign for our sport to see so many young people giving it a real dip in wanting to do their country proud in the sporting arena that is so much a part of our cultural make up as Australians. In addition, we have seen some quality performances by our senior elite athletes and a very pleasing growth in the depth of competitive talent by our women no doubt brought about by the inspiring efforts of our World Champion Hanny Allston. Meanwhile, on the MTBO front a great team was again announced to represent us and they are also inspired to know that they too have a world class benchmark in former World Champion Adrian Jackson to measure themselves against. So make sure you get along to Dubbo in July and cheer on our young people representing us at JWOC. Our family will definitely be there. Hope to see you there too cheering on the green and gold.

Mike Dowling, 17 High St. Bellerive 7018. tel 03 6244 71773; email mdowling@tassie.net.au

Course Planning continued…

The Burra graphs highlight the outstanding performances of two orienteers in the non-elite classes. Geoff Lawford (EU-V) in the M50 class was a clear winner on each day which gave him an overall result well above expectation. Jenny Bourne (EU-V) also won each day in W45 with her relative speed above expectation. The M60A & M65A winners also performed well relative to other ‘A’ classes and reflect the strong field and depth of competition in these age groups. In conclusion the use of relative speed factors proved to be worthwhile particularly for the Elite and ‘A’ classes as actual winning times were generally in accordance with predicted winning times.