Junior World Orienteering Championships – Dubbo
w w w. o r i e n t e e r i n g . a s n . a u Orienteering Australia PO Box 284 Mitchell BC 2911 President: Bob Mouatt Director (High Performance): Mike Dowling Director (Finance): Blair Trewin Director (Development): Ben Rattray Director (Technical): Andy Hogg Director (Special Projects): Robin Uppill IOF Vice President: Hugh Cameron Executive Officer: Kay Grzadka Manager (High Performance): Robert Preston Manager (Coaching & Officiating Development): Bert Elson Badge Applications: John Oliver
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STATE ASSOCIATIONS Queensland OA: PO Box 114 Spring Hill QLD 4004. Secretary: Angela Hoelzl, Ph. (07) 3325 1165 oq@oq.asn.au OA NSW: PO Box 3295, North Strathfield NSW 2137. Secretary: Dave Lotty, Ph. (02) 8116 9848 Orienteering ACT: PO Box 402, Jamison Centre ACT 2614. Office: John Suominen, Ph. (02) 6162 3422 orienteering.act@webone.com.au Victorian OA: PO Box 1010 Templestowe 3106. Secretary: Warwick Williams. Ph. (03) 8846 4140 voa@netspace.net.au OA South Australia: State Association House, 73 Wakefield Street Adelaide SA 5000. Secretary: Phil Stoeckel OA Western Australia: PO Box 234 Subiaco WA 6904. Secretary: Carol Brownlie Ph. (08) 9446 3457 carolnken@ozemail.com.au Orienteering Tasmania Inc.: PO Box 339, Sandy Bay, TAS 7005. Secretary: Andrea Lawrie Ph. (03) 6245 1997 Top End Orienteers (Northern Territory): PO Box 39152 Winnellie NT 0821. Secretary: Rose Baartz Ph (08) 8983 1846
DECEMBER ISSUE DEADLINE: October 12 Time-sensitive: October 19
ISSN 0818-6510 Issue 3/07 (no. 147) SEPTEMBER 2007
The national magazine of Orienteering Australia Inc. ABN 77 406 995 497 Published four times a year: First day of March, June, September, December. Print Post Approved PP 236080/00011 Editor: Michael Hubbert, P.O. Box 165, Warrandyte, Victoria 3113 mikehubbert@ozemail.com.au Phone (03) 9844 4878 Magazine Design & Assembly: Peter Cusworth, 8 View Street, Avonsleigh, Vic. 3782. Ph. (03) 5968 5254 cusworth@netspace.net.au Magazine Treasurer: Blair Trewin Printer: Priden Printing Services, 21 Century Drive, Braeside, Vic. 3195 Next edition: Cover date: 1 December 2007 Contribution deadlines: October 13. Time-sensitive material, October 19. Deadline dates for contributions are the latest we can accept copy. Publication is normally planned for the 1st of March, June, September & December. Copies are dispatched in bulk to State associations in the week prior to that date. Regular Contributors: Badge Awards: John Oliver; Competition: Blair Trewin; High Performance: Mike Dowling; MTBO: Blake Gordon; Official News: Kay Grzadka; Nutrition: Gillian Woodward; Training: Steve Bird; Psychology: Jason McCrae. Contributions are welcome, either directly or via State editorial contacts. Prior consultation is suggested before preparing major contributions. Guidelines for Contributors are available from the editor or from state contacts. State Editorial Contacts Qld. – Liz Bourne 07 4683 6374 (h) batmaps@halenet.com.au NSW – Ken Sinclair 02 9639 9675 sicad@ozemail.com.au ACT – Philip Purcell philippurc@hotmail.com Vic. – SA – Claire Davill 08 8226 4381 (w) davill.claire@saugov.sa.gov.au WA – Cath Chalmers 08 9380 4049 catheoin@ozemail.com.au Tas. – Mary Hawthorne 03 6243 8616 (h) editor.oti@trump.net.au Subscriptions: State Association members via State Associations. Contact relevant Association Secretary for details. Other subscribers: Write to The Australian Orienteer, PO‑Box 165, Warrandyte, Vic. 3113. Within Australia: $40 inc GST. Overseas: Asia/Pacific (inc. NZ) $A44, Rest of World $A49. Delivery is airmail, there is no seamail option. Please send payment in Australian dollars by bank draft or international postal order, or pay direct by Visa or Mastercard. Quote full card number and expiry date. Subscription renewals (direct subscriptions only). The number in the top right-hand corner of the address label indicates the final issue in your current subscription. Opinions expressed in The Australian Orienteer are not necessarily those of Orienteering Australia. 2 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
CONTENTS W O R L D C L A S S AT J W O C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 J W O C M A P S .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 VOICE OF THE FOREST............................ 11 J W O C R E P O R T S .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 4 AUSTRALIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS.................. 18 DUBBO DASH........................................ 20 TRAINING – A prescription for health........ 22 H I G H P E R F O R M A N C E R E P O R T .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 6 NUTRITION – Snacks.............................. 27 MEET YOUR TEAM – ACT Blue Lightning..... 28 L E T T E R S .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 0 N AT I O N A L L E A G U E.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1 N U T R I T I O N – Fr u i t.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2 TOP EVENTS......................................... 33 ORIENTEERING IN RED CENTRE................. 34 WOC IN UKRAINE PREVIEW...................... 40 MTB WOC ........................................... 42 MTB-O NEWS ...................................... 44 A PRESIDENT’S PERSPECTIVE .................. 46 O A E X E C U T I V E N E W S .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 7
Front Cover: Simon Uppill on his way to fourth place in the Long Distance race at JWOC. Photo: Rob Preston.
2007 JWOC – DUBBO
World Class Juniors set Dubbo forests alight What a week of high-class orienteering. The Norwegians showed their strength in both male and female JWOC classes and the Czechs were also strong.
A
highlight for many was in the girls Relay when the lead changed three times in the run from the last control to the Finish, with the Norwegian, Siri Ulvestad, prevailing by just two metres over Swede Jenny Lonnkvist. Ulvestad stumbled at the creek crossing but fought back to regain the lead as the crowd rose to its toes and roared encouragement. For Australia the emergence of two new forces in Australian Orienteering was great to see. Simon Uppill’s 4th place in the Long-distance Championship showed that he has matured as an athlete and was a fitting rewards for the hard work he has done in preparation for these Championships. On the same day, Vanessa Round took a podium 6th place in the Longdistance Championship – a fitting reward, too, for her efforts in preparation, and both Simon and Vanessa had very good runs in the Relays a few days later. Vanessa Round
Simon Uppill
Congratulations and Thank You Bob Mouatt – President, Orienteering Australia
O
N behalf of the Board of Orienteering Australia, and the entire Australian orienteering community, I wish to say congratulations and a huge thank you to all of those involved in staging the highly successful Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) and associated events in and around Dubbo. It was without a doubt one of the most successful and significant Orienteering carnivals ever staged in Australia. There were obviously times when some feared that it would not come together, but on each day it did, and all those involved can take great pride in their achievements.
Another emerging force was Rachel Effeney. Initially not selected in the Team, Rachel came in to replace the injured Ineka Booth. She snatched the opportunity by finishing second Australian in the Sprint Championship at Dubbo Zoo, then next day she was again second Australian in the Long-distance Championship. Rachel had a slight stutter in the Middle-distance qualifying race when she missed the A Final, but then finished 5th in the B Final and had an excellent 2nd leg in the Relay. Rachel has another year as a Junior so will be aiming at being a major force in the 2008 JWOC Team when it heads to Sweden next July. Only Vanessa Round and Simon Uppill had previous experience competing at JWOC. For the others in the Team this was their first JWOC and, for such a young and inexperienced team, they performed to a very high standard. Australia’s talented Juniors can be proud of their achievements in Dubbo and can look toward even greater achievements next year in Sweden. Congratulations must go to Ron Pallas, Paul Prudhoe and the Organising Team for a memorable JWOC2007 and Western Plains Carnival. It would be interesting to know the number of manhours that went into creating the Carnival. A rough guesstimate would be 20-30,000 man-hours. Such a successful carnival requires that kind of time commitment. All those involved should feel justly proud. And they would be pleased to hear the comments of one Swiss girl competitor who said that coming to Australia for JWOC2007 was better than orienteering around The Matterhorn at Swiss-O-Week last year. Rachel Effeney
Apart from staging a highly successful Orienteering competition, Australian orienteering gained considerable skills and experience that will serve us well into the future, and that would never have happened but for JWOC. And now to balance the books. A high level of participation in the 2008 Australian 3-Days on the maps used for JWOC will be important to OANSW breaking even over all, so I would encourage everyone to consider heading to Dubbo for Easter 2008. I will certainly be there and will be looking forward to the challenge of navigating successfully through the granite of Sappa Bulga, the general name for the area.
SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 3
AUSTRALIAN 3-DAYS
Pl Name
Class Time
1 Olav LUNDANES
M20
71.30 6.44
4 Simon UPPILL
M20
76.42 6.91 16 0.55 41.39 0.56 43.31
Rate
1 1.32 1.32 1.44 1.44
17 9.33 51.12 10.50 54.21
4 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
18 0.59 52.11 0.55 55.16
2 1.12 2.44 1.18 3.02 19 0.58 53.09 0.59 56.15
3) 3.47 6.31 3.56 6.58 20 6.29 59.38 6.11 62.26
4 1.39 8.10 1.51 8.49 21 2.23 62.01 2.50 65.16
5 4.37 12.47 4.36 13.25 22 1.05 63.06 1.26 66.42
6 1.02 13.49 0.59 14.24 23 2.13 65.19 2.42 69.24
7 1.12 15.01 1.07 15.31 24 1.24 66.43 1.46 71.10
8 8.11 23.12 8.05 23.36 25 2.18 69.01 2.44 73.54
9 3.07 26.19 3.24 27.00 26 0.58 69.59 1.13 75.07
10 1.53 28.12 1.24 28.24 27 1.18 71.17 1.21 76.28
11 1.28 29.40 1.25 29.49 Fin 0.13 71.30 0.14 76.42
12 1.03 30.43 1.04 30.53
13 6.53 37.36 7.59 38.52
14 2.13 39.49 2.37 41.29
15 0.55 40.44 1.06 42.35
Winning PartnershiP
The Australian Sports Commission proudly supports Orienteering Australia The Australian Sports Commission is the Australian Government agency that develops, manages and invests in sport at all levels in Australia. Orienteering Australia has worked closely with the Australian Sports Commission to develop orienteering from community participation to high-level performance.
AUSTRALIAN SPORTS COMMISSION
Orienteering Australia is one of many national sporting organisations that has formed a winning partnership with the Australian Sports Commission to develop its sport in Australia.
www.ausport.gov.au SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 5
2007 JWOC – DUBBO
ROB PRESTON
A stunning back drop for the presentation for the Women’s Long Championship with Vanessa Round on the podium in sixth place.
Women’s Relay finish goes down to the line
Below: Norway’s Siri Ulvestad and Sweden’s Jenny Lönnkvist put in a desperate final sprint for the Women’s Relay gold medal. PHOTOS: ROB PRESTON
Coming into the finish chute Siri Ulvestad (left) and Jenny Lönnkvist are neck and neck.
Siri gets a slight edge crossing the ditch and rounding the corner…
6 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
…but stumbles, allowing Jenny to draw level again…
Siri regains her balance and they are now literally shoulder to shoulder…
ROB PRESTON
The star of the championships, Olav Lundanes from Norway, won 2 Gold and 2 Silver medals.
and still… shoulder to shoulder…
ROB PRESTON
ROB PRESTON
Simon Uppill clearing the wood from the trees was the best placed Australian with a 4th place in the Long Championship.
until Siri crossed the line barely a metre ahead… and Gold for Norway.
Jess Davis amongst the rocks
BRUCE PATERSON
SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 7
NEWS
AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLS TEAM Australian Schools 2007 International Representative Team The Australian Schools Team to compete against New Zealand in late September is: Junior Girls Katie Doyle..................... QLD Lilian Burrill.................... QLD Georgia Parsons............ ACT Melanie Neumann......... QLD R1. Glennie Nottle......... QLD R2. Naomi Mitchell........ ACT R3. Rebekah Sunley...... VIC
Senior Girls Aislinn Prendergast....... VIC Krystal Neumann........... QLD Catherine Hewitt............ TAS Brea Pearce.................... TAS R1. Claire Butler............ TAS R2. Emily Prudhoe......... NSW R3. Thea Richardson..... NSW
Junior Boys Kurt Neumann............... QLD Samuel Webb................ TAS Todd Neve...................... VIC Dave Mallen................... VIC R1. Thomas Carter ....... NSW R2. Aaron Breed............ QLD R3. Kasimir Gregory ..... NSW
Senior Boys Leon Keely..................... VIC Simon Mee.................... QLD Lachlan Dow.................. ACT Joshua Blatchford......... NSW R1. Oscar Phillips.......... TAS R2. Oliver Crosato......... QLD R3. Callum Fagg............ TAS
Manager: Valerie Barker, ACT Coach: Ian Dalton, WA Editor’s note: Under School Sport Australia policy, any school-age members of the Australian JWOC Team were ruled ineligible for selection in the 2007 Australian Schools Team. Thus our best school-age orienteers, such as Belinda Lawford, are not in the Team. Will the New Zealand Team include some of their JWOC competitors? Will our depleted Schools Team still be competitive? It’s a real pity that such an inflexible policy has compromised the strength of our Australian Schools Team this year.
8 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
NUTRITION
a JET
Buy yourself
“It’s not by chance that the world’s best orienteers run with a SILVA Jet compass.” says Grant Bluett who runs with a Silva 6 Jet Spectra
SILVA 6 JET SPECTRA
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SILVA 5 JET
Features a scratch resistant ‘comfort-fit’ curved back-end baseplate and the unique fluorescent red/white, broad Jet needle. Easy-to-grip housing with enlarged dial. Detachable map scales in 1:15,000 and 1:10,000 and silicon baseplate feet to prevent unintentional slipping on maps. $133 from your local O-gear shop at events.
SILVA 1S JET
Same high-performance Jet needle as in above model. Large magnifying lens in baseplate for enlarging fine map detail. Other features as in 5 Jet. $145 from your local O-gear shop at events.
Buy yourself a Jet at the next event
Photo: Tore Myrberg
JET compasses have the unique super-fast “Rare Earth” broad magnetic needle for the fastest settling and stability when running over rough terrain. Guaranteed to save precious seconds every time you check your bearing.
2007 JWOC – DUBBO
JWOC2007 from the Tower A number of people have expressed their thanks, and their curiosity, regarding the race commentary at the recent Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) held near Dubbo. This article explains why we did it and how we went about it, from both a commentary viewpoint and the technical angle.
Creating The Voice of the Forest Jason McCrae & Andy Hogg
W
E rated JWOC2007 as the second most important race in Australian orienteering history (behind only WOC’85) and we wanted it to make a big impact; not just amongst the Australian orienteering community but also the rest of the world. After much discussion, we decided we could best contribute to JWOC by reviving our World Cup 2000 commentary team. We recruited Paul Liggins (a.k.a The Work Experience Kid) as a Producer, and a technical team to rival Google. In a reckless fit of imagination we also promised the event organisers we would broadcast to the web – at the time having almost no idea what was involved.
the OESpeaker program. This information made our job easy – we could usually tell when a potential leader was approaching the arena before the crowd could see them. We used this to build anticipation, particularly during the Long Distance race when the view from the tower included the amusement of the entire crowd flooding back and forth across the spectator area en masse to see leaders go through spectator controls on both sides. The tower is also an essential element for two reasons. Firstly (provided it is sited properly) we can catch a glimpse of runners through the forest before most of the crowd. Secondly it keeps us separated from the crowd so that we can keep our attention on the race. In summary, if you’re thinking of doing commentary for a race (say a State or National champs) it can be a very worthwhile exercise for the event and rewarding for the commentators. It requires good planning, preparation, anticipation and a sense of humour when things are going awry. Few in the crowd were aware, but on 3 of 5 days at JWOC we started the race commentary with our technical gurus still working flat out to get radio splits working. For the Long Distance race, this occurred about 20 seconds before the first person went through the radio control. Keep reading to hear how they did it…
Jason calls a finisher in on the Long Distance, while Andy watches on. Photo: Richard Talbot
In the end, we relied heavily on the technical gurus to do most of the hard work (see below), leaving us free to concentrate on talking. We have our own particular style of commentary – Jase tries to amuse while Andy likes to give information – but it’s a combination that works well, provided you give it enough thought. Here we give our opinions on the important elements of commentary. We can’t just turn up on the day and produce interesting or insightful commentary, particularly for an international race like JWOC (220 competitors who were mostly unknown to us). This required substantial research on previous competitions in an attempt to filter out the favourites from the rest. After several goes at this we produced a single document that we could refer to when flustered to give interesting facts or speculation. Other times we just had to make it up. On the day, we found planning to be essential. With 220 competitors, as many as 4 radio splits and 3 spectator controls, we faced information overload. We couldn’t hope to mention every runner who came past the arena – this meant concentrating on one spectator control at a time; alternatively we focussed on potential leaders or Australians (in some cases both!). Our producer was essential here, refocussing us when needed and providing extra information when required. Of course, an Orienteering race has the potential to be very boring from a spectator point of view. In our case we were lucky that all of the course planners had spectators foremost in their mind when planning the courses, and gave ample opportunity for us to see the competitors. The most critical element of Orienteering commentary is to give the crowd information before they can see the runners. To do this we used radio controls (details below) which provided almost instantaneous information on leading runners through 10 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
Taking it to the World José Zapata
T
HE Voice of the Forest was propagated to the world via two channels. One was the set of amplified speakers which produced the sound for the spectators in the event arena and the other was a live audio feed, which took the same sound and made it available over the internet. The commentators’ voices and the music (played from a laptop) were carefully combined through a mixing console to produce a seamless transition from the competition action to sponsors announcements and recorded interviews. Commentators could also play popular songs, which allowed them to entertain the public during less eventful periods and recover their breaths. The mixer output was then directed to a PA system and speaker horns, which were placed around the commentary tower and directed to the designated spectator areas, enriching the public’s race experience. At the same time, the mixer output was also directed to a second laptop, which encoded the audio signal in real time and sent it via the internet into a SHOUTcast server. A SHOUTcast server is the internet equivalent of a free radio station,
where listeners can tune into by connecting to the server using a music software package (e.g. Winamp or iTunes). Given the expectation that most of the listeners were based in Europe, VotF hired a SHOUTcast server in Sweden that relayed the audio signal to international listeners. The two most popular events were the Sprint, where a maximum of 145 listeners were connected for 50 minutes on average and the Relay, where a maximum of 167 listeners were connected, averaging 60 minutes per visit. All the interactions of the team with the Internet, i.e. live audio, text commentary, radio controls and results upload, as well as the public forum interaction, were possible thanks to a special variety of broadband internet. Due to the remote nature of the competition areas, and the high tech requirements of the coverage, a fast, reliable and cheap connection to the internet was required. The conventional forms of broadband (e.g. ADSL, Cable) are not available outside metropolitan areas, and Wireless technology depends on area coverage in the same fashion that mobile phones do. Therefore, the best solution was to use Satellite broadband internet. Colin Price, from the JWOC2007 marketing and sponsoring committee, acquired a sponsorship agreement with Clear Networks, which is a growing provider of Satellite Broadband for rural and remote areas, as well as regional centres. Clear Networks not only lent the required equipment, which included a satellite dish and broadband modem, but also the relocation and adjustment of the dish, after each day’s event, and an internet connection that suited our requirements free of charge. Once the system was set up (which only took about 20 minutes) it worked with consistent reliability. A busy moment in the tower. Photo: Richard Talbot
Sportident, Radio controls, Networks, EMMA & Information Overload Bill Jones & Dane Cavanagh
T
HE program used to run the events at JWOC, and most other larger events, is OE2003. OESpeaker is an add-on program to extract competitor details from OE and give event commentators organised information to broadcast. Until a competitor has finished and downloaded, the commentator has to make do with little fact and a lot of speculation. Enter the radio control.
A SportIdent control station on a course is connected to a radio link back into the OESpeaker program. When a competitor punches the control, the control number, the SIcard number and the time are instantly relayed to the commentator. The information can have two purposes. One may simply be to warn the commentator of a runner approaching a spectator control. The other is to give the commentator an accurate split time of a runner’s progress to that control. OESpeaker also calculates the runner’s time to that point and sorts the runners/times in order, giving the commentator accurate information to broadcast to the audience.
(For the techo heads: The radios operate in the VHF band at 151.3MHz, with a transmitter power of 100mW and a data transmission rate of up to 2400 bauds. They have a listen-beforetransmit capability to avoid collision with other units. They are also fitted with a modem to convert the digital input signals for radio transmission. Data input speed to the modem can be up to 115200 baud. The modem checks for clear-to transmit and message acknowledgement. It will also retry a preset number of times if the sent message is not acknowledged. The radio modems do require some reasonably simple programming initially. The radios at JWOC were programmed before the event and never changed throughout. The radios can also be easily utilised with one laptop to check if a selected radio link path is viable by using the “ping” function. The radios come with short, flexible whip antennas that are only suitable for short distances, about 200-300 metres. Distance can be increased to about 2 –3 km with a more efficient 1/4 wave antenna mounted well off the ground, or one of the radios can be configured as a repeater, although this requires more comprehensive programming of the radio network). While radio signals were received directly to the tower, we also needed a connection to the finish tent (and networking between all of our computers). We decided very early on to go for a wireless network as opposed to a wired network – this option had fewer cables and no long cable to connect to the finish tent (avoiding the risk of a clumsy spectator taking out the entire network). There were many computers in the finish tent but we only needed to communicate with two of them. One was the backup results and the other was the main results computer. Both these computers were running copies of OE2003 (standard event administration software) for all the individual days and OS2003 for the Relay day. We were using the backup computer for our radio controls so that we could tie in the SportIdent number punched with an entered runner and therefore know their name. The commentary network was set up with an Apple Airport Extreme base station at its centre. We were using WEP protocol for security as some computers would not support the WPA SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 11
Pl
Name Class Time Rate 1 Siri 1 ULVESTAD W20 60.47 8.44 1.35 1.35 Vanessa 6 ROUND W20 62.50 8.73 1.31 1.31
2 1.03 2.38 0.52 2.23
12 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 11.32 4.34 1.34 1.09 1.40 9.29 3.50 7.12 4.06 1.40 4.24 14.10 18.44 20.18 21.27 23.07 32.36 36.26 43.38 47.44 49.24 53.48 10.31 4.56 1.37 1.20 1.52 10.21 5.03 8.14 3.48 1.43 4.17 12.54 17.50 19.27 20.47 22.39 33.00 38.03 46.17 50.05 51.48 56.05
14 15 16 Fin 3.20 1.26 1.57 0.16 57.08 58.34 60.31 60.47 3.25 1.27 1.37 0.16 59.30 60.57 62.34 62.50
2007 JWOC – DUBBO protocol. The Apple Airport Extreme was connected to the satellite dish through a Broadband modem. We were running four computers plus one 19-inch wide screen monitor up in the commentary tower and three laptops in the tent below. We had four of these computers connected wirelessly – but discovered late in the piece that two didn’t have wireless cards in them, and one refused to communicate wirelessly; so we connected them into the three wired ports in the router. In total the VotF network had six computers connected wirelessly and three with cables. All but two of the computers in the network were running OESpeaker on all the individual days and OSSpeaker on the Relay day. The Speaker versions of the programs allow for easy commentary. A quick run down of computer tasks: Two computers were just for the commentators to get information of radio controls and competitor pre-warning - one also had the 19-inch widescreen monitor attached.
Dane consults with his mother, while the rest of the team (both above and below) concentrate on the race. Note the trusty satellite dish to the left, and the radio mast on the tower receiving signals from the controls. Photo: Richard Talbot
One computer, a Macbook Pro, was playing the music and prerecorded interviews.
Text Commentary
One computer was streaming the audio signal to the web.
Blair Trewin
One computer was being used for uploading text commentary. One computer was receiving the Radio Controls and sending the information to the finish to be processed. One computer had a program called EMMA for uploading the radio splits to the web. EMMA is a special program provided by Peter Löfås from Sweden. EMMA is used on a computer running OESpeaker or OSSpeaker depending on the day. This computer needs to run automatic results, which refreshed every 30 seconds. There is a considerable amount of technical work in setting up EMMA and we are thankful that we had the full support of Peter in Sweden both prior to and during the event. Finally just a quick word about how all of JWOC2007 appeared on the web. Once the splits appeared from the radio controls with the help of EMMA they were moved via the Clear Networks Satellite dish to their satellite and then to servers in Sweden hosted by Peter. Voice commentary took the same route but was handled by Henrik Persson in Sweden. Both Peter and Henrik monitored and worked on the servers to make this all happen, sometimes with e-mails bouncing to Sweden and back at all hours of the day and night. Finally, at the conclusion of the events we uploaded the results, which were produced out of OE2003 into a CSV format and then uploaded to the new OA results server. Part way through JWOC this server had to be moved from an Australian based server to one in Germany as the server in Australia was not handling the incredible load. Everything required constant monitoring and there were some late nights sorting out minor problems and early mornings setting everything up for the day. Often the smallest problem can be the biggest downfall. Luckily we had a group of people that knew what to do in situations like that and we could determine the best course of action – and we always managed to have the commentary tower ready by the time the first runner went through.
S
PECTATORS at the event probably never realised it, but text commentary was going live on the web for all the JWOC races. This used a relatively simple application written by José and works provided the Internet is running. It’s a great backup to get some information to the world even if all other systems fail, provides extra information for those listening to the broadcast and an alternative source for those who can’t pick up the audio signal. Text commentary is something that all major national events would be able to use if Internet were available, is almost free, and would add a lot of interest to our major events. The text commentary attracted a lot of comments on our public forum, and had as many “listeners” as the audio broadcast. The text commentary was merged into a race report, filed on the website with results and photos within 30 minutes of the finish on each day.
SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 13
2007 JWOC – DUBBO
The Events Blair Trewin
Long-distance, 9 July At first glance Sappa Bulga looked as extreme an area as anyone had ever seen, with hillsides filled with rock and more rock. Once out there it was a bit easier than it looked, but it still provided a major test for the field’s endurance. It was definitely an area to sort the best out from the rest. The Norwegians had a fabulous day, rekindling memories (for some of us – although probably not for the competitors, none of whom were born then) of the senior World Championships of the early 1980’s when Norwegian clean sweeps were a regular occurrence. They took 1st and 2nd in both races, led by Olav Lundanes, who won the JWOC Long-distance for the second time.
Sprint, 8 July The Junior World Championships started with the Sprint at Western Plains Zoo. A somewhat unconventional area for the Sprint – the out-of-bounds areas on the maps were marked with the names of the animals contained therein. (At most Sprints people going into out-of-bounds areas risk being disqualified; here, they risked being eaten). Steady rain fell for the two hours before the start, but it broke to occasional drizzle by the time the first competitors headed out (the last vertical moisture seen for the week). Being the first race, judging the favourites was difficult, although it was expected that most of the likely prospects would start in the later part of the field (teams can choose which people to allocate to which start blocks). In such situations the early leaders rarely stay close to the top. The most impressive time of the early stages was posted by Jenny Lönnkvist (SWE), who held the lead for much of the first half of the day. The action heated up in the middle of the day, when two very impressive times were posted. Vojtech Kral (CZE) was more than 30 seconds clear of the field when he crossed the line, whilst Eva Svensson (SWE) took an 18-second lead over her compatriot. Both margins looked impressive in a Sprint race but it was far too early to say that they were medal-winning runs. Both times, though, did hold up for gold medals. Svensson’s time looked highly likely to fall when Sarka Svobodna (CZE) was 21secs ahead of her at #10, but that margin was gradually whittled away over the last third of the course, and disappeared to nothing by the end. She fell a single second short. Maja Alm (DEN) was the last real chance; she was always within a few seconds of Svensson, but could never quite catch up and had to settle for bronze. Lönnkvist finished 5th, just behind Siri Ulvestad (NOR). Kral was not really challenged until late in the day. Mikael Kristensson (SWE) looked a possibility before losing time at #12 and #14 (only 15secs apiece, but that is enough to be fatal in a Sprint at this level), but a more serious threat was Olav Lundanes (NOR), regarded as one of the best juniors for many years and favoured for multiple medals this year. Lundanes always looked like getting in the top two, and made a charge over the final controls, but it left him with a silver medal, 6secs short. Whilst he never looked like winning, Ivan Sirakov (BUL) managed a major milestone for Bulgaria; his bronze was their first-ever international medal. Illustrating just how fine the margins can be in Sprints, only ten seconds separated 7th and 19th. Simon Uppill was the pick of the Australians. The Sprint was expected to be his weakest distance, which made his 10th place a very encouraging result. Vanessa Round was the best of the women in 23rd. It was also a good day for the New Zealanders, with top-twenty results from Tom Reynolds (15th), Greta Knarston (19th) and Lizzie Ingham (20th). 14 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
After early skirmishes of little consequence to the front end of the final results, the first seriously challenging time was posted by Stephan Kodeda (CZE). His result held up for a long time, but it was expected to come under major challenge later in the day. When his time was surpassed it was done convincingly, with Magne Dæhli (NOR) coming in more than three minutes ahead. The next major interest in the men’s race was the run of Simon Uppill. From the start it looked like he was on an extremely competitive time and had a real chance of a medal. A minute lost on the long 17th leg cost him a chance of overhauling Dæhli’s time, but he was still fast enough to be in medal contention. When Uppill crossed the line he was in 2nd place, but by then Lundanes was in the forest and clearly on an excellent run. He was narrowly ahead of Dæhli through the spectator controls, but was still only 13secs ahead at #20, and 37secs ahead at #22. That was where he took control of the race, finishing much stronger than anyone else in the field. He won six of the last eight splits, and finished nearly three minutes ahead and an almost certain winner. The only thing which remained to be decided was whether Uppill could hang onto bronze. He saw off several challenges, notably from Jan Benes (CZE) (who looked good until he lost time at the very end), but was eventually squeezed out by the last realistic contender, Christian Bobach (DEN). Like the men, the women saw a fast time posted in the middle of the day, but this time it was one which held up to the end. Siri Ulvestad (NOR) crossed the finish five minutes ahead of the field. It looked a good time, but would it be enough? Her team mate, Kine Hallan Steiwer, was the closest threat. She was at least as fast as Ulvestad (who did not win a split), but two minutes lost at #9 would eventually prove crucial; she came back hard at the end but fell 26secs short. Vanessa Round provided the next major excitement when she led through the first seven controls. She was always in touch with the leaders after that, not quite close enough to challenge seriously for a medal, but close enough to set herself for a very significant placing. That left the task of chasing the Norwegians down to two remaining runners. Heini Saarimaki (FIN) looked an excellent chance for silver at least for much of the way. She was only three seconds behind Steiwer at the second last control, but lost 30secs on the last and had to settle for bronze. Sabine Hauswirth (SUI) was very competitive, but never quite looked like breaking into the medals and finished in 4th place. Round held onto a podium place in 6th. For the Australians, apart from their two lead runners, Louis Elson could be happy with his day’s work. At halfway a top-20 place looked possible; he drifted back a little in the second half but still ended in the top third of the field at 37th. Rachel Effeney also had a solid race (especially for someone not in the original team), finishing midfield at 53rd, whilst for New Zealand Greta Knarston’s 16th was her second top-20 result in two days.
Middle-distance Qualifying, 11 July The main interest in any qualification race is in the major casualties. This time, the main casualty was as big a name as they come – a Long-distance gold medallist. Siri Ulvestad, after being on the pace for much of the course, lost 8mins at #10. Even for a world champion, that is too much to recover from in a Middledistance race, and she missed by just over a minute. With 60 out of 92 to qualify, few other significant exits were expected and few eventuated, the most notable being Greta Knarston (NZ) missing a control, although Anna Forsberg (SWE) got a scare when a 4mins mistake at #5 left her in 19th, qualifying by one place. For the men it was much less of a formality. All of the top-10 from the Long-distance qualified, but there were a few notables elsewhere who did not, most significantly sprint medallist Ivan Sirakov BUL), Simon Hodler (SUI) and Jonas Gvildys (LIT) (who lost 2mins at the third-last). Whilst the results at the front end are not always a reliable guide as to what is likely to happen the next day, it was difficult not to take note of Jenny Lönnkvist’s run, as she won her heat by more than two minutes. The other two heats were won by Norwegian women, Kine Hallan Steiwer and Ida Marie Bjorgul. Timo Sild (EST), well known to the home crowd through his year in Adelaide in 2005-06, was a heat winner, along with Olav Lundanes and Zsolt Lenkei (HUN). Qualifying may have been a formality for some of the best (barring serious accident), but for most of the Australians it was a major objective. As expected, Simon Uppill and Vanessa Round qualified easily. None of the other men made it, although Louis Elson got agonizingly close, falling five seconds short after some wobbles at the end. It was a better day for the women, with Heather Harding and Bridget Anderson making it with a bit to spare, and Jess Davis also scraping through. Again New Zealand had their moments, with top-3 results for Lizzie Ingham and Tineke Berthelsen.
Middle-distance final, 12 July Jenny Lönnkvist (SWE) produced the dominant performance of the heats. This does not always mean anything for the final, but on this occasion it did. Making a mockery of the closely bunched group who were at the front of the field when she set out, she was already nearly a minute clear at #5 – so fast that those watching the radio controls wondered if she might have missed a control. She further extended her lead over the rest of the course, and was more than 2mins ahead when she finished. Ida Marie Bjorgul (NOR) made some impression on that in her silver-medal run, but never seriously looked like winning and was 1:34 behind at the end. It was close behind that; so close that the two contenders for the bronze could not be separated. Saila Kinni (FIN) and Tatyana Mendel (RUS) were close throughout and ended up level at the finish. As she had the previous day, Vanessa Round made a very promising start, but she lost time on the short ninth leg and ended up in 15th place. Martin Hubmann (SUI) was the clubhouse leader as the men’s race approached its business end, but in 2007 nothing was considered decided until Olav Lundanes had posted a time. As the splits came through it became apparent that Lundanes was again a very serious player. Once again he was closely challenged by a fellow Scandinavian – this time Petter Eriksson SWE). The margin was in single digits for much of the course, but #16 control was crucial. Lundanes gained 27secs there, consolidating a very narrow lead, and ended up 44secs ahead. Eriksson narrowly held on for silver ahead of Hubmann.
made an uncharacteristic poor start, losing a minute at the first control, and had to be content with 21st place. None of the other Australian finalists got into the top half of the field, with Heather Harding the pick of the bunch at 38th, and the New Zealanders did not quite fulfil the high hopes generated from their qualifying results.
Relay, 13 July The JWOC week finished with the Relay. Sometimes Relays are slightly less technical than the individual events, but this one made no concessions and was as much of a challenge as the remaining events – starting with a major route choice on the first leg (although few were brave enough to go wide in a mass-start situation). At this level one normally expects significant lead packs on the first leg and JWOC2007 was no exception. Ten men and thirteen women finished the first leg within a minute of the lead, with the main interest being in who wasn’t there. The Finnish and Danish men both lost more than five minutes to the leaders and never got into medal contention, whilst the Norwegians were two minutes back, which was to prove crucial. Russia, Denmark and France were the major early casualties in the women’s event. The second leg was where the critical move was made in the men’s race. Jan Benes, a Middle-distance gold medallist in 2006, had had a disappointing set of individual events, but he ran a great second leg to give the Czechs a clear lead. He was 2mins clear of the field at the final spectator control, and whilst the Norwegians made some impression on that over the closing stages, he still had more than a minute in hand at the end. A minute still looked a tenuous lead, with double gold medallist Olav Lundanes to chase Adam Chromy (CZE), but Chromy was equal to the task in a superbly controlled race. He never missed a beat and maintained the lead at between 30secs and a minute throughout the course, extending it a little at the end to give his country the win by 1:10. The Czechs completed an excellent day when their second team came in third, but as only one team per nation counts officially, the bronze went – unexpectedly – to Latvia after three consistent runs. The second women’s leg whittled the pack at the front down but did not produce a clear leader, with Norway, Czech Republic and both Swedish teams at the front, and Finland only 30secs behind. Norway and Sweden looked the favourites with two world champions, Siri Ulvestad and Jenny Lönnkvist, up against each other. Lönnkvist looked to have made the decisive break early on the last leg. Ulvestad lost time at #2, as did Frida Aspnäs for the second Swedish team, and Simona Karochova (CZE) also lost time over the opening controls. That left the Swedes a minute in front, and they still had that lead into the final loop – but then Lönnkvist lost that minute at the third-last control, setting the stage for a sprint finish. The Swede still led at the final control, but only by a few metres, and after a fiercely contested, elbowto-elbow, sprint for the line, Ulvestad prevailed by a metre. The bronze medal also changed hands over the final control, as Sabine Hauswirth went through the Finns and Czechs to give third place to Switzerland. For the Australians, the chief highlight was Simon Uppill’s second-leg run. He had the fastest second leg, just ahead of Benes, and the fifth-fastest time overall. The team placed 19th. The women looked a chance for the top-10 at times, particularly after Rachel Effeney further enhanced her reputation with an excellent second leg, but were squeezed out of the top10 when Maja Alm had the day’s fastest time for the Danes.
Simon Uppill went into the race with very high hopes – his best domestic elite results have been in the Middle-distance – but he SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 15
2007 JWOC – DUBBO
Australia’s JWOC in Dubbo 2007 Hilary Wood, Team Manager
JWOC was on home turf this year with the expectation that the home advantage would clearly see Australia with a clear advantage. What was the reality?
T
HIS year we had a mostly new Team apart from the two talented South Australians, Vanessa Round and Simon Uppill. Realistically, when one analysed the results over the preceding 12 months these two were our best chance of success. They did not disappoint with Simon’s results showing he can compete at the highest level in the world with a 4th and Vanessa attaining a 6th place in the prestigious Long-distance event. They were the best two performers overall. Their years of previous JWOC experience showing through along with the realisation of just how tough the competition is on the world stage. The Team shows it has the potential to develop over the next couple of years with youngsters like Belinda Lawford, one of the youngest Australians to compete in JWOC, showing great promise. Rachel Effeney coming from a running background and quickly picking up the navigational challenges also proved a good selection as first reserve after Ineka Booth had to withdraw from the team as a result of injury, however Ineka is back to training and will be no doubt be in the running for the team in 2008. The Team prepared with four days in Orange at the beginning of the official training camp and then retreated to the cold climes of the World Heritage Blue Mountains. Here the Team relaxed with some running in the mornings and taking in the magnificent scenery this area affords. Some Team members battled the winter woes of colds and coughs and plenty of immune boosting foods were consumed. We were fortunate to have nearby the official JWOC Doctor, Mark Freeman, who attended to us to make sure we would be in the best possible condition leading into the competition. Another home team advantage was to have the services of two physiotherapists, Jan Sargood and Jarrod Vos from Tasmania. The Team enjoyed the massages as well as the generous sponsorship from SKINS where each member was given four garments - shorts, tights, recovery tights and vests - to help them recover from their
training sessions and perform at their peak in the competitions. We also were sponsored by HIGH 5 nutritional products which proved very popular with the team and ensured energy levels were kept at an optimum level for the races and in particular the Long-distance race where it is easy to become spent if one does not have on hand the gels to keep one going. The four days of training saw the selection trials area revisited and the Team tried exercise bikes to warm down after the race to ensure optimal recovery strategies were taken.
Sprint: Western Plains Zoo The morning was cool and squally showers were threatening. Rain had fallen on the previous few days and it was not looking good. However the weather cleared and although a bit muddy underfoot the atmosphere was exciting with the Voice of The Forest providing excellent coverage in the arena and monkeys squealing to add to the fun. The Sprint race is characterised by quick running and fast decision-making on route choices and rewards those who are fittest and fastest in thinking over the short distance. Simon Uppill started Australia’s quest for its best result ever on a good footing coming 10th just 40secs down on the Czech winner Vojtech Kral (13:59). This gave Simon a huge boost in his confidence for the rest of the championships, showing that his fitness was up there with the best. Rhys Challen was the next best Australian male junior in 71st position which was very good considering he was recovering from a cold. The other Aussie boys all finishing within 48secs of one another in 17-18 minutes for the 3.3km course and showing that maybe a lack of physical fitness may be the cause of these more mediocre performances being three minutes behind the top runners. Vanessa Round surprised herself with her 23rd placing and 1:17 behind winner Eva Svensson (13:19) of Sweden over the 2.7km course. She did not expect to do so well as this is not her favourite distance. Vanessa was delighted and it gave her the confidence to believe her performance for the rest of the week could result in a podium finish. Rachel Effeney(15:28) was the next best placed Aussie girl and showed her running background playing its part in her result. The four other girls were led home by Belinda Lawford again, like the boys, finishing within about a minute of each other at the 16-17minute mark. Bridget Anderson was particularly pleased with her result as she does not see herself as a sprinter but her result was as good as her other Aussie teammates.
Long-distance: Malang – “Rock Area” The Long-distance day saw the sun shining and beautiful weather. The Free Range Coffee horse trailer was on hand to keep spectators happy and the atmosphere was upbeat with high
Australia’s 2007 JWOC team. Back row: Jarrod Vos (Physio), Jim Russell (Coach), Morten Neve, Vanessa Round, Rob Fell, Simon Uppill, Nick Andrewartha, Louis Elson, Rhys Challen, Hilary Wood (Manager), Jan Sargood (Physio). Front row: Hanny Allston (Coach), Rachel Effeney, Belinda Lawford, Bridget Anderson, Jess Davis, Heather Harding. 16 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
expectations from the Australian crowd for the Aussie Team. The arena was magnificent with great views of two spectator controls - one on the rocky hillside above the results board and one manmade adjacent to the finish chute. Another run through on the other side provided plenty of opportunity for the spectators to watch the runners throughout the day. This race is the toughest of the championships requiring strong endurance and fitness and the HIGH 5 gels were extremely beneficial to our team and kept their brains working and enabled them to maintain the concentration and energy required for navigating on the run in peak form. The teams generally send there weaker runners out earlier in the day and so early posted times tend to be beaten later in the day. Simon, being our strongest runner, was in the last start block. He caused great excitement getting to the first radio control in the fastest time at that point. Vanessa also caused excitement when she came through the radio control as she also had the fastest time at that point. By the time Vanessa finished she was in a very good position but was closed out by later finishers with faster times. She finished in 6th place which was outstanding. Vanessa is only the second Australian girl to Hanny Allston in achieving a podium finish at JWOC. Simon also joins esteemed company in finishing in 4th place as Julian Dent did in Switzerland in 2005, Tom Quayle back in the 90’s twice, Troy de Haas being the only Aussie junior to finish better in 3rd spot in 1999. Louis Elson had his best run of the week in the Long-distance finishing in a creditable 37th position. He was very happy with this run and looked smooth as he passed through the arena.
Middle-distance Qualification: Ngan Girra – “meeting place” The Australian Team were appropriately buoyed by the strong performances from Simon and Vanessa. The Team was hopeful of maximising the number of team members to qualify for the A final. The field is divided into groups of 60 competitors for the heats and the top 20 in each heat qualify for the final. The girls showed their strength in the shorter distance more technical terrain race and Australia came through with 4 girls having great runs to qualify for the A final. Vanessa Round convincingly qualified in 2nd place in her heat. Heather Harding and Jess Davis qualified in 9th and 17th place respectively in their heat and Bridget Anderson was very pleased with her 10th place qualifying her for the A final. These results show the potential for depth in the Aussie team with these three girls being potential runners for Australia next year. Rachel Effeney and Belinda Lawford just missed out both finishing 23rd in their heats. In the boys Simon Uppill continued his good form and qualified comfortably in 11th spot. Louis Elson’s steady attitude gave him a frustratingly close-to-qualifying time finishing in 22nd place and missing out by just 5 seconds. He just needed to sprint a bit harder through the arena and he would have been there. He commented that he made a few minor mistakes in the second half of his course which slowed him up. Rhys Challen, Morten
Neve, Nick Andrewartha and Rob Fell followed the trend of the Sprint and all finished in the 31st minute, eight minutes away from the winning qualifying times.
Middle Distance Final: Dhaadyiwa – “look out for” The Aussie girls were very happy to have made the A final and put their best efforts in, however so did the other competitors and the Final day proved to be a little too hard for them. Bridget Anderson made mistakes from the outset and never quite got into the map. Vanessa Round again showed her experience and finished in 15th place 4 minutes off the pace. Heather Harding was very happy with her run for her first JWOC finishing in 38th position 6:30 behind the winning time of Jenny Lonnkvist. Jess Davis was very happy too, although 8mins from the winning time, finishing in 47th place. In the boys only Simon was in the A final. He managed to finish in 21st position 3:30 off the pace which was a creditable performance. He was not terribly happy with his run commenting that it was a bit scrappy. Olav Lundanes continued to show his fantastic form winning the 4.5km course in 23:15.
Relays: Nguluway – “meeting each other” The Relay day was very cold and very bleak. Again a lot of thought had gone into making the arena spectator-friendly and even though the weather was bitter it was an enjoyable day. The Australian Team were excited and keen to support each other in a good race. Obvious favourites were Norway in the boys and girls and they did not disappoint although the Czech Republic who had shown strong form over the week with people like Jan Benes and Adam Chromy in the team were going to make it a real race to the line. In the girls they were feeling good and well in with a chance of a top-10 result. Vanessa Round, Rachel Effeney and Heather Harding made up the stronger team and did well to finish in 11th place. In the boys the second team had something to prove to the coach after much deliberation over who would be in what team. The boys’ results over the week being much the same apart from Simon Uppill and Louis Elson standing out from the others. The third member was a cause of much angst for the coaches Jim Russell and Hanny Allston. As it turned out all three in the second team beat the times of Louis Elson and Rhys Challen, proving picking the best for the Relay is no easy task. Simon’s outstanding time of 43:06 was still a clear 7mins ahead of any of the other boys in the Aussie team and equal 5th fastest time on the day. Overall the Australian Team finished 12th country out of the 28 countries competing. The team has many young members who will no doubt be back next year in Sweden to show what they can do. They now realise how tough the competition is and what they have to do to improve on this year’s results. They will be working hard to improve their general level of fitness and will concentrate on Orienteering at a faster and safer pace, looking for safe and sure route choices to get them between controls in the fastest possible time.
SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 17
2007 AUSTRALIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS – DUBBO then took his opportunity when Simon Mee, who had led most of the way, crashed to sixth with an 8min error at #15. That left Phillips comfortably clear of the field with only Josh Blatchford as a plausible challenger, and they went on to take 1st and 2nd, two minutes apart. Oliver Crosato completed the placings after a good second half.
Blair Trewin NSW Championships, Tuckland, 7 July The week opened with the NSW Championships at Tuckland near Dunedoo, an area which was largely gully-spur but with some lines of rock along the slopes. Many courses had a very long first leg, and this was crucial in deciding the result in several classes. The two favourites in the open classes both showed why they were favourites, winning by double-digit margins. Dave Shepherd was in front from the start and won the first ten legs, with his only wobble on the course being the loss of a minute at #22. He was 5mins in front by #13 and doubled that by the end. Karl Dravitzki (NZ) was his closest challenger for most of the day, but lost 3mins at #24 and 1min at #27 to drop out of the placings, in favour of his fellow New Zealander, Neil Kerrison, and Rob Preston.
The closest race of the day was fought out by Kurt Neumann and Sam Webb in the Junior Boys. They were never more than 15secs apart at any stage, but Neumann held a razor-thin lead throughout the second half and was 10secs clear at the end. 3rd place was even closer, as three Victorians finished within 9secs; James Robertson squeezed the more experienced Todd Neve out in the chute. Four States were in contention after the individual, with Tasmania holding a one-point lead over Queensland. The competitors coped surprisingly well with the most technical terrain used for this event, with only a few major blowouts.
Australian Schools Relays, Sappa Bulga, 13 July Tasmania took out the Australian Schools Championships for the second time, after a consistent performance on Relays day. Victoria, the best performer in the relays, and New South Wales tied for second, four points behind, with Queensland slipping to 4th place.
Hanny Allston was even more overwhelming in W21, only losing two legs, both by small margins, and finishing an enormous 13mins clear of the field. Grace Elson lost 6mins on the first leg, then bounced back strongly but it left her too far back to get ahead of Jo Allison for 2nd place. Cassie Trewin, in her first major event in Australia for several years, was just behind in 4th.
Schools Relay day rarely passes without a certain amount of drama. 2007 saw the usual quota of shooting stars and untimely mispunches. This year’s distinctive feature, thanks to the limited daylight after the JWOC Relays, was the final leg mass start, only 90 minutes after the start; it became a factor in several classes, especially the senior girls.
The junior classes were depleted by the absence of the JWOC team. Kieran Sullivan was a comfortable leader from the start in M20, a result which turned out to be crucial in the National League, whilst Aislinn Prendergast opened what was to be a breakthrough week by scoring her first win at this level after a tight contest with the Neumann sisters, Krystal and Laurina.
Like the individual race, the Junior Boys were close from first step to last with the two leading teams being together almost throughout. Five teams finished in the lead group on the first leg. This was whittled back to two after two legs as Victoria and NSW pulled away from the field, and they were still almost together at the last control. Dave Mallen had just enough in hand over Kasimir Gregory and was able to hold him off by 13secs, while Brett Fisk, who had impressed with his speed at times, ran the day’s fastest time to get away from Sam Webb and give the South Australians 3rd.
Notable results in other classes included a rare defeat for Patricia Aspin (NZ) in W55, where she was unable to run down Carol Brownlie after losing 4mins on the first leg; a narrow win for Paul Pacque in M50 after a fluctuating battle with Geoff Lawford; and Steve Craig’s return to Australian orienteering in M35, for 2nd place behind Jock Davis despite a strong finish.
Australian Schools Individual, Sappa Bulga, 10 July Aislinn Prendergast continued her good form into the first day of the Australian Schools Championships when she took out the Senior Girls’ class. Her closest challenger was Krystal Neumann, but once Prendergast took a narrow lead in mid-course she was never headed and scored by just over a minute. The Tasmanian pair of Catherine Hewitt and Claire Butler both led at times in the first half, and whilst they drifted back a little later were still very competitive in 3rd and 4th. Queensland dominated the Junior Girls, having the three fastest times on the day. Glennie Nottle only won two legs, but she led most of the way and took the race by 22secs from a fastfinishing Katie Doyle who only came into the team at the last moment because of an injury cloud over Lilian Burrill. But Burrill wasn’t too badly affected because she ran the third fastest time. As a reserve, she did not count for 3rd place in the official competition, which was taken by ACT’s Georgia Parsons after a steady run. Oscar Phillips looked out of it at halfway in the Senior Boys; he trailed by over 3mins at #8 after losing two minutes at #7. By #14 he had fought back to be within a minute of the lead, and 18 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
Queensland’s title chances had already been severely weakened when their Junior Boys fell right out of contention on the second leg, and disappeared altogether when Oliver Crosato mispunched on the second leg of the Senior Boys. That left Tasmania in the box seat, and they reinforced that position by winning the race, Oscar Phillips coming from 2mins down on the last leg to overrun New South Wales. Leon Keely and Lachlan Dow both ran spectacular last legs but could not quite lift their teams into the top-2. Like the Junior Boys, there was a big lead pack – of four – after the first leg of the Junior Girls, but after that it was, predictably, all Queensland as they finished nearly 30mins clear. In one of two races where the mass start was a factor, the ACT were second across the line but the inexperienced Victorian team finished early enough to squeeze them out on total time. Tasmania were never in the hunt, but four points for 4th were enough to virtually ensure them of overall victory. The mass start was a major factor in the Senior Girls. Only two teams avoided it, and both only just; Tasmania and New South Wales went out together. Krystal Neumann and Aislinn Prendergast went out together in the mass start. The Victorians were totally out of contention but Neumann had to beat the other two across the line by ten minutes, which looked just about possible. It was even more plausible when she had an 8min break by the spectator control, and although Prendergast just beat
After emerging from JWOC with his reputation enhanced, Louis Elson backed up the next day to take the M20 national title comfortably. Bryan Keely matched him for pace most of the way but had left himself too far behind after losing 4mins on the first two legs. Oliver Mitchell, now recovered from an altercation with a truck during the summer, was second for much of the way, but his chances ended when he lost 8mins at #19. The battle for 3rd between two other Queenslanders, Kieran Sullivan and Simon Mee, was not resolved until the last control, with Sullivan taking the place – and the National League with it – by 5secs. Start of the Schools Relay. Photo: Ian Dalton
Neumann across the line in a sprint finish, it was Neumann’s run which gave Queensland a memorable victory. In a result which determined 2nd place overall, Prendergast’s run was almost enough, remarkably, to overcome a 29min deficit and squeeze into 3rd, but NSW finished just in time to hold on.
Australian Long Distance Championships, Sappa Bulga, 14 July Dave Shepherd and Hanny Allston repeated their NSW Championships victories to take out the national titles when the orienteering public at large got to take on Sappa Bulga in a big race. Shepherd was as dominant as he had been a week earlier, once again finishing 10mins ahead of the field. He took command of the race on the long ninth leg, by which stage he was already 5mins ahead five kilometres into the race, and he relentlessly extended his lead with only trivial wobbles. His win was not without controversy given his involvement in JWOC setting, although his event had been at the opposite end of the area and the size of the margin left little room for doubt. As it had been a week earlier, his closest rival was a New Zealander. Whilst both Rob Preston and Ben Rattray were strong challengers for second in mid-course, both dropped out of contention – Preston made two significant errors and Rattray drifted away – Karl Dravitzki (NZ) held it together and took 2nd, ahead of Eric Morris’s consistent run. There were also top-6 results for Ryan Smyth and Chris Naunton in their first year as seniors. Allston, in contrast, did not have things all her own way. She lost time at #2 and #9 and swapped the lead with Grace Elson for most of the first half of the course. At #9, beyond the halfway mark, she was only 16secs ahead, before gradually extending that margin over the second half of the course to be beyond 3mins by the end. Jo Allison was always within striking distance of Elson, but was never quite able to bridge the gap to her, which remained near a minute to the end. 4th and 5th were occupied by two usual suspects in Kathryn Ewels and Susanne Casanova. Aislinn Prendergast’s winning streak in W20 ended, but only because of foreign opposition. Mariann Ulvestad (NOR), sister of JWOC Long-distance winner Siri (and an unexpected omission from the Norwegian team in her own right), was a class above the rest of the field and won by 8mins. Prendergast’s closest opponent was Krystal Neumann. Prendergast lost time early and was 4mins down by #5, got back into the race when Neumann dropped 3mins at #8, but did not take 2nd until the very end, eventually holding it by 8secs.
The current crop of M16s are a group of whom more will be heard, and two of the cream of the crop fought out a high-standard race. Lachlan Dow got an early break over Josh Blatchford, and whilst it was cut a little in the second half he held on to win by a minute. Kurt Neumann, running up an age group, was an impressively close 3rd. Another member of the large Neumann clan, Melanie, scored an unexpected win in W16, a minute ahead of Nadia Velaitis. The eighth leg claimed many victims in this class, including NZ JWOC team member Kate Morrison, early leader Claire Butler and Schools winner Glennie Nottle, all of whom missed the placings after major time losses there. Two long-term expatriates returned to take national titles: Steve Craig (M35) and Donald Staudte (M40). Craig’s win was comfortable, whilst Staudte inherited the lead after favourite Paul Liggins’s chances ended with a 15min mistake at #8. Two of the tight results from the NSW Championships were reversed this time. Geoff Lawford led from the start in M50 and gradually pulled away from Paul Pacque for a 3min win. Once again Patricia Aspin fell behind Carol Brownlie in W55 after losing time early, but she was close enough to recover in the second half, turning a 2min deficit into a 2min win. Aspin’s win was one of two for New Zealanders, the other being Marquita Gelderman in W40, where Clare Leung also managed a significant breakthrough by beating Christine Marshall and Nicola Dalheim for the resident title. The two closest veteran races were W45 and W50. Robin Uppill shaded Sue Neve by 6secs after a fluctuating race, with the lead changing hands at the last control. W45 saw a greater late swing, when Jenny Bourne lost 2mins late in the course after leading throughout, opening the door for Liz Abbott to win by 27secs, with Chris Brown and Anthea Feaver also within 3mins. W60 looked set to be just as close with Debbie Gale and Jenny Hawkins only seconds apart for almost all of the course, but Hawkins slowed at the very end to give Gale a comfortable victory. Unusually, there were comfortable margins in some of the larger classes. Nigel Davies (M55) and Tim Dent (M65) were both more than 5mins clear, and even Bob Allison’s 2min margin in M60 was larger than is normally seen in that class. Less than a minute separated John Lyon and Clive Pope in M70, with Lyon leading most of the way but never by much, and Sue Healy had a similarly close race with Anne Stewart in W75. Hermann Wehner further extended his winning record, with his comfortable win in M80 being his 15th national title. continued page 23 SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 19
DUBBO DASH DILEMMA
Done my DUBBO DASH at Sandy Beach John Williams
The Dubbo Dash was a sprint orienteering event for orienteers competing in the Western Plains Carnival and took place along the banks of the Macquarie River following the JWOC2007 Sprint at Dubbo Zoo. John Williams, from South Australia, had something of a mind explosion at various points around the course and found himself visiting #10 control three times during his run. Being the congenial fellow that he is, John agreed to write about his run and to try to figure out just what went wrong.
5. I veered towards #10, where the seated control guarder gave me a very strange look, and I had to agree with him. “You idiot” I said to myself under my breath. At some point I remembered punching #8, and so turned around and re-punched #10.
D
My Dubbo Dash was Alice in Blunderland - from almost first to almost last in only 30:16 (Wayne’s winning time was 19:17)!
ESPITE the wintry non-beach weather, the Dubbo Dash seemed very much like my cup of tea, a cross-country race with my fellow M60/65s along the banks of the mighty Macquarie River. A piece of cake, but it required the usual stern reminder don’t go anywhere near the front early on!
6. In denial of time lost, I put my head down and - my finest moment - ran fastest time for the leg to #12 (take that, Wayne!). 7. I caught George Reeves, about eight years my senior, but got ‘over-excited’ and overshot both #15 and #16. 8. My confidence was almost totally gone - could that control be #17? Yes, I think so, but I am quizzed by a female orienteer as to its identity – the women’s courses split to a different #17 higher up the hill. I don’t care any more, and manage a geriatric 40secs for 80 metres to the Finish, coolly pursued by our Editor, and hoping not to be noticed.
For reasons I can’t explain, I was the first to see #1, but went the safe track route, ensuring I was fourth to punch, then on climbing by the slower route choice, my arm collided with someone in black (Wayne Aspin?) and I had to scramble back to retrieve my map. The leaders were receding into the distance and I had to do something quick to make up the time lost so far. Oxygen debt began to set in as our procession began to catch some W50s (unthinkable that some of them would run faster times than me!). At control #8 (2nd fastest leg, 3secs faster than Wayne) I was all alone and in respectable shape, but from there it all went downhill: 1. At the walking path below #8 I saw the leaders emerging from #9, but told myself that it wasn’t my control, and went on direct to #10. 2. On my way to #11, I realised I’d missed #9, so I returned, but left the path too early and had to scramble in a steep rocky area. Some of the women leaving #9 looked like the ones I saw at #3 and #4. Wayne did 0:34 for this leg compared to my 3:26 ! 3. My leg time to #10 was 3:01 (Wayne 0:39), and I have no idea why it took so long to punch a familiar control site only 50m away, apart from some severe brain fade. I must have been standing around puzzling at the map for some time. Then, OhOh, did I punch #8?! Don’t remember – I’d better go back. 4. Crossed the pipeline and climbed vaguely towards #8, wondering if an embarrassing mp is preferable to a horrible #8, 9, 10. 20 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
Spirulina – The remedy for the 21st Century The body’s principal source of both immediate and long-term energy is a substance called glycogen. Glycogen is stored in the muscles and liver and is not ordinarily directly available through our diet. Spirulina is the only plant source of glycogen available and the more glycogen available during intense or sustained exercise, the greater the potential for improved muscle functioning. Athletes can take spirulina 5-6 grams in juice half an hour before training (or even while training) to concentrate the nutrients in the blood, making them available to the muscles when and where they are needed most. Bluecrystal Spirulina is the richest source of organic nutrition on the earth. It is the richest source of iron, 28 times more than liver. It is the richest source of beta carotene, 25 times that of raw carrots. Is nature’s richest source of anti-oxidants. For more information please phone Pauline on 0408 206 740.
$90 for 1 kilo.
Wayne Aspin
Sandy BeachDubbo Scale 1:
Contours 2m
SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER
21
TRAINING
How safe is our sport? Steve Bird
Participating in any sport, or indeed pretty much any activity conveys a risk of injury. For most sports this risk is slight, or at least it is for major or life threatening injuries. Whilst at the same time, minor injuries such as small scratches or bruises that convey no lasting harm, are virtually ignored and considered to be an inevitable part of participation. So what are the injury risks in Orienteering, and how do they compare against other sports? Sport specific injury profile Each sport has a characteristic injury profile that is attributable to the demands of that sport. Which is why, for example, Rugby League with its frequent and forceful collisions has a very different injury profile to marathon running, which by comparison has a high incidence of repetitive overuse injuries to the feet and legs.
Epidemiology The incidence of sports injuries can be expressed in a number of ways. For example, by simply stating the number of injuries that occur (injury incidence), but this does not take into account the fact that some sports are more popular than others in terms of the number of participants. Which means that the sport in which most injuries occurs, may not in fact be the one with the greatest relative risk to the individual. If, for example, it has a very high number of participants, but only a very small percentage of whom get injured, compared with a less popular sport, which has fewer participants, but a high percentage of which are injured. Additionally, when making these comparisons it may be desirable to factor in how often people participate, for example, just once a month, or five times a week. So when comparing the relative prevalence of sports injuries, expressions such as injuries per participation hours are sometimes used.
Traumatic vs Overuse Traumatic injuries are those that can be attributed to a specific incident, such as a fall or colliding with a branch. Whereas overuse injuries tend to come on insidiously, and are due to repetitive actions gradually causing damage. An example of these would be a sore achilles tendon caused by running too many kms. Incidentally, here of course there is considerable individual variation in what constitutes too many kms, as some people will have the physical capacity to do far more than others before they exceed the resilience of their body tissues.
Acute vs Chronic Injuries can also be broadly described as acute, if they’ve just occurred, or chronic if they persist. A chronic injury can be caused either by a traumatic event from which the damaged tissue fails to recover or, as indicated above, from repetitive overuse.
Orienteering injuries One of the classic studies on injuries in Orienteering looked at the Finnish Men’s (Jukola) and Women’s (Venla) Relays1. The
22 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
results of the study suggest an injury incidence of 2-3%, which equated to around 15 injuries per 1000 competition hours or 2.6 per 1000 km. These were mainly (70%) in the lower limbs and included minor blisters, scratches and abrasions. Of the more substantive injuries, ankle sprains were the most common, accounting for 25% of all injuries. This is a common finding amongst many similar studies, including that by Creagh and Reilly2 on elite female orienteers, 68% of whom reported having been injured, with ankle injuries again being the most common (43%) followed by knees (16%). Likewise Linde3 reported elite orienteers to suffer from an average of 1.7 injuries per year, 52% of which were acute and 48% overuse. And yet again, ankle sprains were the most common, comprising 37% of acute injuries, with most of the remainder being contusions caused by falls or bumps against branches or rocks. Not surprisingly, these mainly occurred during competition.
Comparison with other sports As indicated above, the ankle is the most commonly injured site in Orienteering, but how do these compare with other sports? In the study by Lian et al4, knee injuries, such as ‘Jumpers Knee’ were common in volleyball and basketball, with a prevalence of 44% and 32% of the participants respectively. This compared with no reported cases in Orienteering. Additionally, the study by Bahr et al5 indicated that the prevalence of lower back pain was no greater amongst orienteers than non-athletes.
Long term consequences A common claim amongst the non-sporting fraternity is that playing sport will increase your risk of arthritis. Well the evidence suggests that to some extent they are correct, but not entirely, and the good news is that Orienteering is not likely to increase your risk. Evidence for this comes from a study by Thelin et al.6 which was based in Sweden and showed that the increased risk of knee osteoarthritis was associated with a previous traumatic injury to the knee. Which is why participants in sports such as Soccer and Ice-Hockey, in which traumatic injuries are relatively common, have an elevated risk of later osteoarthritis. But in sports such as Orienteering and Track & field, where traumatic knee injuries were not so common, the risk of knee osteoarthritis, was no greater than that in the general non-sporting population. Likewise the study by Kujala7 et al. showed no increase in lower limb disability in older orienteers, compared with aged matched non-smoking, but non-athletic men. But, incidentally, they did report a greatly reduced risk of heart attacks amongst the orienteers, with the orienteers displaying only 1/7th of the prevalence of heart attacks compared with their less active compatriots.
Other health risks However whilst Orienteering conveys a relatively low injury risk, and considerable benefits to our general health, we should still take precautions against other health concerns such as tetanus, and when travelling abroad be aware of any local issues such as Lymes disease, which is carried by ticks, and is not uncommon in certain parts of Europe (particularly Eastern Europe).
Reducing risk of injury Four key factors that could reduce your risk of injury: • Wear protective clothing – glasses, gaiters, and ankle braces if you’re vulnerable to sprains; • Undertake appropriate training loads – to prevent overuse injuries; • Medical precautions – anti-tetanus injections; • Warm up – a likely benefit but unproven.
Conclusion The risk of severe injury in Orienteering appears to be slight, compared with many other sports. But the ankle is commonly sprained. However, in saying this, in any discussion the slight, but nevertheless real, risks in participating in Orienteering, need to be considered against the significant, very real and arguably greater risks associated with not doing any activity. Which, as indicated in a previous article, include heart disease, diabetes and some cancers. So in reality the risks of both morbidity and premature mortality are likely to be greatly reduced through our participation in Orienteering. And to misquote an oft presented saying: “Whilst Orienteering may not add many years to your life, it can certainly add life to your years”.
References 1. Linko PE, Blomberg HK and Frilander HM (1997). Orienteering competition injuries: injuries incurred in the Finnish Jukola and Venla relay competitions. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 31: 205-8. 2. Creagh U and Reilly T (1998). Training and injuries amongst elite female orienteers. Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, 38:75-9. 3. Linde F. (1986) Injuries in orienteering. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 20: 125-7.
2007 AUSTRALIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS – DUBBO Australian Relays, Single’s Forest, 15 July The Relays returned to the gully-spur forests east of Dubbo but, unlike the NSW Championships, rock was not a major factor. This was the business end of the National League, although most of the results were settled before the start, barring an improbable set of results. An improbable set of results was almost what we got in M21. NSW, bolstered by Julian Dent’s first competitive outing for the week, were clear favourites, but Victoria only needed 3rd place to take the title (with 5th being enough if NSW won). The NSW Stingers were a little off the pace as Dave Shepherd took an early lead for a thin Canberra team, but they took control on the second leg through Rob Preston. They were 3mins ahead going into the last leg, and Dent extended that to 7min with a very impressive final leg, easily the fastest of the day. Simon Uppill’s last leg was almost as good, pulling the South Australians up to 2nd, but the real drama was happening elsewhere. There were three Victorian teams in the race. One, which came a solid third, was ineligible for National League points because it included non-resident Rune Olsen. Another, the nominal first team, had started slowly but looked to be set for, at worst, 3rd, until Troy de Haas completely missed the first spectator control on the final leg. That left everything in the hands of the one remaining team, with Jim Russell needing to catch 6mins on Jason McCrae to make sure of the National League. He was still behind at the final spectator control but got in front over the last few controls to make sure of the title (although other results meant the Nuggets would have won anyway as long as he finished). The women’s National League was decided long before Relays day, but they turned on a fantastic race anyway, with a sprint finish for victory and only 2mins covering the top four teams. A lead group of three, Jo Allison, Tracy Bluett and Grace Elson, broke away on the first leg, 4mins ahead of the rest of the field. NSW were still
4. L ian OB, Engebretsen L and Bahr R (2005). Prevalence of Jumper’s knee among elite athletes from different sports. American Journal of Sports Medicine, 33: 561-67. 5. B ahr R, Anderson SO, Loken S, Fossen B, Hansen T and Holme I (2004). Lower back pain amongst endurance athletes. Spine, 29: 449-54. 6. T helin N, Holmberg S and Thelin A (2006). Knee injuries account for the sports-related increased risk of knee osteoarthritis. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 16: 329-333. 7. K ujala UM, Sarna S, Kaprio J, Koskenvuo M and Karjalainen J (1999). Heart attacks and lower limb function in master endurance athletes. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 31: 1041-6. Footnote: During the past few months I’ve had to accompany a couple of orienteers to local hospitals as a result of falls they’ve had during an event. The most recent of these was the Australian Championships, where there were three orienteers in the emergency department of Dubbo Hospital, each with a different affliction. The receptionist commented that the waiting room was filling up with orienteers, and whilst we tend to view our sport as fairly safe, it’s interesting to consider how it compares with others. Professor Steve Bird is at RMIT University, Melbourne. Steve worked with the Great Britain National Orienteering Squad for over 10 years and is now assisting the Victorian Junior Squad.
continued from page 19 in front after two legs, a minute ahead of the ACT, but Susanne Casanova’s second leg put South Australia back into the mix another 30secs back, and Victoria were still in touch after a solid effort by Ilka Barr. With NSW slipping a little, it ended up coming down to a race between ACT and South Australia. The last four controls were common, and Cassie Trewin held a narrow lead over Vanessa Round for most of it, but it was too small a gap to hold and they hit the last control together. Round then won the race for the South Australians in a hard-fought sprint finish, with a 3sec margin. NSW were another minute behind that, with the Victorians a further minute back. The only other National League issue in dispute was the Junior Boys, where Victoria needed a 2nd place to wrap it up. No team was especially convincing, but the Victorians did enough to win, building a 10min lead over their Tasmanian rivals by the end of the second leg. Queensland comfortably beat all the other State teams, although a New Zealand JWOC team gave them something to think about before finishing 3mins behind. Tasmania dominated the remaining A classes, winning M16, M45, M55 and W35. M45 was the best race of these. Paul Pacque set them up on the first leg and they took a 7min lead into the final leg. Mark Darvodelsky almost ran down Mike Dowling, running on the same split, but a late charge left NSW 7secs short at the finish line. In contrast, the Tasmanians had to come from slightly behind in M16, as Oscar Phillips recovered from a disappointing individual event to pull away from Kurt Neumann and take a 2min victory. Queensland also had their moments. Unsurprisingly, they took out W16 (and got 3rd for good measure), and Clive Pope came from behind to give them a win over Tasmania in M65. Sue Neve brought the Victorians back from a 2min deficit to take W45 with a bit to spare, whilst the NSW team scored comfortably in W55.
SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 23
New South Wales invites you to a carnival of fantastic orienteering on the same incredibly detailed maps that were used for JWOC 2007. A challenging mix of wild bush, gullies and fantastic rock features with plenty of fast open forest for runners. Easter is a peak visitor period for the region. Accommodation will be at a premium. You should book early. Further information on the World Wide Web at: http://aus3days2008.orienteering.asn.au/ or email: easter2008orienteering@hotmail.com For a comprehensive list of accommodation choices visit www.dubbotourism.com.au. Or contact the friendly team at the Dubbo Visitors Centre & Events Bureau on (02) 6801 4450
Friday 21 March Family Relays, Elite Prologue and the open to all Slologue. Saturday 22 March Australian 3 Days Individual, Day 1 Sunday 23 March Australian 3 Days Individual, Day 2 Australian Universities Championships Monday 24 March Australian 3 Days Individual, Day 3
24 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
Nick Andrewartha
Jess Davis
Morten Neve
Belinda Lawford
Simon Uppill
Louis Elson
Vanessa Round
Bridget Anderson
Rob Fell
Rachel Effeney
Heather Harding
Rhys Challen SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 25
HIGH PERFORMANCE
JWOC and beyond Mike Dowling, OA Director, High Performance
W
HAT a fantastic week of racing that was JWOC2007 in Dubbo. In challenging terrain we saw that Australians continue to show we can be world class with the brilliant performances of South Australian duo Vanessa Round and Simon Uppill. What it did again reveal to the wider orienteering public was that to be a world class Australian junior you need to be competitive with the best of our senior elites as Vanessa and Simon have demonstrated in our National League this year. Their performances also underlined my basic triple tenet of what it takes to be a world class orienteer; high class physical fitness, strong technical skills when running on the limit and a highly focused approach blended with a calm mental strength. It was also great to see two very inexperienced orienteers in Queensland’s Rachel Effeney and Victoria’s Belinda Lawford acquit themselves with credit on the international stage. Along with the rest of the team it was a fantastic experience for them and I hope it has inspired all the 2007 team to continue to strive to be an integral part of the future of our high performance program. Our international competitiveness can only continue to develop through our national junior representatives remaining involved when they reach senior ranks and building the depth of orienteers competing for their States in our National League. For those juniors who are still eligible for 2008, Gothenburg in Sweden will bring new challenges in the “home” country of Orienteering and should be fantastic experience for those who are selected. I’ve no doubt that the presence of the State Schools teams at JWOC has been an inspirational experience for many to want to be a part of the international orienteering stage and we can be sure some of those will be pressing for selection in 2008. Great credit and thanks must also be given to the joint team coaches, Hanny Allston and Jim Russell, in the way they worked with the team after coming on board late in the team’s preparation phase. The willingness of Hanny, our wonderful World Champion, to give so much of herself as she also prepared to defend her title in the Ukraine needs to be particularly acknowledged. It was particularly selfless and giving of Hanny to make the time and effort to do so. As one who has worked with national teams in the past it is very exhausting being involved in supporting the team during such a high stress week. Supporting our two team coaches was the fantastic back room work of Team Manager Hilary Wood who backed up for a third year of involvement and two wonderful physios in Jan Sargood and Jared Vos who did so much to keep the team in the best shape possible to continually front up and give their best in a demanding week of racing.
Great Work Ben! Keen observers will also have noticed the great work undertaken by my fellow OA Director, Ben Rattray, which bore fruit with the JWOC team gaining sponsorship support from Skins, Fastgear and Silva. The support of these companies for our JWOC team is highly valued as getting sponsorship support is a most difficult and challenging task for a sport like ours that lacks the media profile of the “professional” sports.
Welcome Rob & Bert Our new paid officers Rob Preston and Bert Elson are settling into their roles. The cornerstone of Rob’s role as Manager High Performance will be to provide strategic assistance to our national 26 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
team management/coaching groups and to work closely with ACTAS (our National Training Centre), State-based coaches and national league managers to build our competitive depth as a basis for improving our international competitiveness. Rob brings a long career as an elite orienteer to the role. A central part of Bert’s role as Manager, Coaching & Officiating Development will be to develop our coaching & officiating capacity at all levels from those who work at the local community level to those who seek to work with our high performance athletes
Planning For 2008 Both the Foot and MTBO High Performance Management Groups are busy planning for 2008 to build on our position as the leading non-European nation. When this edition hits the streets we will have appointed our new national team coaches for the next period. Our desire is to have coaches appointed for the traditional 2-year term and to also provide them with an option of a third year. This is to allow coaches time to gain experience and more importantly develop strong relationships with their teams. On the JWOC front we have an abundance of emerging talent in our W/M16 ranks that will no doubt form the basis of our JWOC teams in 2009-10 and then onward into our senior ranks. Giving coaches a longer term opportunity to build our talent and to provide logistic support to these coaches will be fundamental to continuing to build on the great strides we have made on the international front this decade. We will again be aiming is to have the selection and trials planning fully in place for announcement by early October. This is to enable all our athletes significant time to plan and train to be ready to put their best foot forward in 2008. For our WOC team we will have the Easter competition on the awesome Dubbo terrain backed up by a second round of races on the challenging terrain of the St Helens area of NE Tasmania as selection races.
Coaching: The Great Orienteering Challenge Orienteering Australia has reallocated a significant amount of its resources into the coaching development area. This is an explicit acknowledgement of the degree of importance OA attaches to the necessity of having active and keen coaches working at all levels of our wonderful sport. OA is keenly aware that coaching capacity is a big issue in some member States and we are very keen to assist in addressing these deficiencies. I personally work with a brilliant group of young orienteers in Hobart and have been very privileged to see how they have made so much improvement in their orienteering and also built some wonderful friendships. It is a rewarding aspect of our sport and I encourage more orienteers to take on such a role. Contact your State Coaching Director and see how you can be involved? The rewards are manifest! Mike Dowling, 17 High St, Bellerive 7018 Tel (03) 6244 71773 ; Email mdowling@tassie.net.au
Orienteering Australia – National Training Centre
NUTRITION
SNACKS – What works best for you? Gillian Woodward
T
HE practice of ‘snacking’ between meals may have been frowned upon in past generations when 3 meals a day was the norm. Nowadays, snacking has become a way of life, especially for some – toddlers or those with small stomachs, teenagers and those with busy schedules. Is snacking healthy or is it necessarily associated with ‘junk’ food? And how can you make those snacks really count as pre- or post- activity boosts? These are the questions to tackle in this edition. By definition, a snack is ‘a light meal - food eaten between regular meals’. The main purpose of a snack should be to provide additional energy enabling one to reach the next meal without a feeling of extreme hunger. In sports nutrition, snacks can be invaluable in providing TIMELY energy for physical activity needs. Not only can they be used before competition or training to improve performance levels, but snacks can be even more important after exercise to help repair and re-load muscles with essential fuel for future work-outs.
So what makes a healthy snack for orienteers? The major nutrients in snacks for any sport should be carbohydrates accompanied by some protein. A little fat is alright, particularly if it is the unsaturated type, but too much fat will retard the emptying of the stomach and hence delay the delivery of the carbohydrate energy source to the muscles where it is most needed. Of course, there will also be some vitamins and minerals in the snack food, and these will add benefits such as helping the energy from the food be released in the body (as do many B vitamins). Good examples of healthy snacks include: fruit (fresh, dried, stewed or canned), low fat milk products like smoothies, milkshakes, yoghurts, or cereals, cereal/fruit bars, sandwiches etc. High carbohydrate vegetables including potatoes, corn cobs, or legumes (baked beans, chick peas, lentils) are also very nutritious snacks. Even a sports drink can be considered a (liquid) snack as can a nutrition supplement drink.
compete? This is where organisation is the key point. You need to be prepared and pack a small cooler with flavoured milk or fruit drinks in hot weather. Hot foods/drinks in a thermos also need to be pre-planned and prepared in advance. You also need to consider the ‘crumble factor’. It is not easy to consume a biscuit or cake that is in several million crumbs when you get to eat it! A good wedge of solid moist fruitcake wrapped in alfoil might be a solution for this one. For compactness, an alternative to ordinary bread in sandwiches might also be a flatter (fit in the back pocket) variety such as pita/ Lebanese/tortillas/burritos with a sticky spread – peanut butter/ vegemite/jam/honey, wrapped in plastic or foil wrap. The best recovery snack combination will provide about 1-1.5 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram that you weigh. So if you weigh 60 kg, your snack, especially post exercise, should contain at least 60-90 grams of carbohydrate. In general, post-event snack foods should be: • High in carbohydrate (including some high GI ) • Moderate in Protein • Include plenty of Fluids • Foods/Drinks you enjoy and have practised using in training Examples of post-event snack foods with their carbohydrate (CHO) content: • 600 ml Sports drink + Fruit bar = 60 g CHO • Cereal bar + 500 ml Fruit juice = 65 g CHO • Sweet muffin + 600 ml Sports Drink = 70 g CHO • 2 Raisin toast with jam + 500 ml Fruit juice = 85 g Always use snacks that you have tried before and found suitable to your digestive system and body’s needs. The best time to try out post exercise competition strategies is after training sessions. Work out what suits you best. Everyone is different, so don’t just copy others – make sure your snacks are giving you the best possible performance benefit by keeping you feeling satisfied and full of energy. Gillian Woodward is a Practising Dietician and has been providing advice in the field for over 25 years. She has been an orienteer since 1984.
Snacks that are often classified in the ‘junk food’ category would include fatty things like potato crisps or other extruded snack foods, hot fried chips, pastries, cakes, biscuits and chocolate. (How often do you see these items as the only alternatives offered at sporting venue kiosks? But that is another issue!) Highly sweetened products like lollies and soft drinks might also be classified by some as inappropriate; however, many athletes have used these quite successfully as energy boosters either during or after competition. Despite the lack of valuable nutrients in them, they do provide ready carbohydrate energy and often if diluted (in the case of soft drinks) may be quite useful. Likewise, cakes that are modified to be lower fat (like many muffins or buns or pancakes) can also be very good snacks. For the orienteer, the main thing about snacks is their transportability. How do they travel both in the car and in the back pocket to these far-flung venues where orienteers train and SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 27
MEET YOUR TEAM
BLUE LIGHTNING Manager: Valerie Barker The Blue Lightning Squad is the training and development squad for ACT junior orienteers.
MATTHEW HARDING
MATTHEW HARDING
Coach: Grant McDonald
Sophie McAllister
MATTHEW HARDING
Olle Poland
Snowy Haiblen
BOB MOUATT
BOB MOUATT
Paul de Jongh
Lachlan Dow Naomi Mitchell
BOB MOUATT
Luke Poland
28 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
HEATHER MCDONALD
BOB MOUATT
MARY MCDONALD
Georgia Parsons
Training Camps
MARY MCDONALD
The Blue Lightning Squad
Blue Lightning History Len Minty took on the coaching role of the ACT junior orienteering squad in the mid-1990s. He wanted a name and image that would give the squad an identity. The ACT floral symbol is the Royal Bluebell, so the ‘blue’ combined with something fast had a definite appeal to Len. Thus the ‘Blue Lightning’ squad was born. Len had a special banner created for the squad, and the banner is still proudly displayed at events where the squad participates.
The Squad and the Team The relatively small geographical size of the ACT is one of our big advantages. Being close means that the squad can be together, at least in part, two or three times a week for much of the year. The squad meets at mid-week training sessions which are held on various inner Canberra maps. The emphasis is on improving our navigational skills and techniques. The squad also meets informally at the Junior Orienteering League events on Saturday mornings, and at the Orienteering ACT events on Sundays. Meeting regularly helps with building team morale and friendships, as well as getting parents involved with the squad, and with fund-raising.
These have become the highlight of the year for the squad. A decade ago, Len Minty would load the squad into a minibus and take them away for the QBIII weekend. Under John Harding’s leadership, the squad had a three-day training camp based in the ACT in 2002. The following year Anthony Scott developed the camp to be bigger and better. The camp was based at the Lake Hume Resort near Albury. The five-day camp in July allowed the squad to train on a wide range of great areas such as ‘Kangaroo Crossing’ and ‘Barambogie’. The 25 to 40 participants included not only squad members of all abilities, but also younger siblings and parents. This became the model for subsequent years. The camps are memorable for visits to the Beechworth Bakery, hot spas at the resort, trivia/games nights, cottage cooking challenges, and the ‘Camp Champs’. This year the camp moved to Buckenderra Holiday Village on the shores of Lake Eucumbene. The squad trained on maps used for Easter in 2005 and the following Christmas 5-Days. The camp also included a trip to Thredbo for swimming and bob-sledding, and ended with a sprint race through Buckenderra Village.
From our Ranks The Blue Lightning squad has produced a number of very talented young orienteers over the years. Several JWOC representatives had their beginnings with the squad: Rebecca Minty, Julia Minty, Oskar Booth, Murray Scown, Sophie Barker, Belinda Lawford, Heather Harding, and Ineka Booth are all former squad members. Many former squad members have returned to assist as coaches and mentors, particularly with the training camps.
The Future Our program for training and developing juniors in the ACT is offered with the support of Orienteering ACT. We are continually on the lookout for potential squad members and welcome keen orienteers to join, whether they are experienced or just beginning. Encouraged by the success of the Blue Lightning squad, the Blue Sparks group has formed to cater for children at pre- and primary school, offering games and string courses for the very young orienteers.
BOB MOUATT
There are plenty of other training opportunities available to the squad. Most members live within 10 minutes of a fully mapped area on which they are able to train. They are also encouraged to take advantage of other training activities including mountain-bike orienteering, rogaines, adventure races, cross-country races in the Spring and Summer, and interval sessions run by the Bilbies triathlon club on Tuesday evenings. Being selected in the ACT Schools orienteering team is the major goal for many of the squad, and most members of the schools team are squad members. The ACT team has had a considerable amount of success at the Australian Schools Orienteering Championships (ASOC). There have been many excellent individual performances, and a number of memorable relay races, by the team over the years. It is the steady and consistent results by the whole team that helped them to finish equal first in 2004 and again in 2006. The main source of squad funds comes from the Blue Lightning cake stall which offers home-baked goodies at most ACT events throughout the season, together with BBQs at major events. The funds raised go to subsidising our annual training camp, and travel to ASOC. Orienteering ACT also assists by letting the squad run, and keep the profits from, a fund raising orienteering event during the year.
Hannah Bragg SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 29
LETTERS The Australian Orienteer welcomes letters. Preference will be given to letters which are concise and which make positive points. The editor reserves the right to edit letters, particularly ones which are longer than 300 words.
Entry Fees for MTBO Championships I’d like to take up the point of event entry fees raised by the recreational rider in the June’07 edition of The Australian Orienteer. As organiser of this year’s Australian MTBO Championships in Newcastle we are acutely aware of the need to balance the cost of the event with the entry fees. Orienteers have always been somewhat sensitive to high entry fees, but on the whole I think we continue to delude ourselves. The financial reality of, say, the Long course at the Australian MTBO Champs, based on 100 entrants, is: State Levy $8.00 OA Levy $5.70 NPWS area access fee $2.20 Printing $2.00 Mapping $10.00 Event organising $5.00 Total: $32.90 So there we have it. Cost of the event is about $33 per entrant. Risk of the event is all to the club. In this case the area passes to National Parks on 1 July 2007 and we’ve had to negotiate extensively to get access for even this one event – a decision which was made after the mapping was completed. So there’s no chance to recoup mapping costs over a number of years. Something which is all too often happening these days. Further, this budget assumes that the people setting courses and organising will not claim petrol expenses for the 3-hour round trip to the area, let alone - heaven forbid - the Australian Tax Office mileage rate for vehicle travel. So all people involved in the organisation not only donate substantial amounts of their time, they are directly subsidising entry fees by absorbing the cost of travel. So the organising club needs to charge over $40 per entry before it makes as much money as the OANSW. I have no real problem with making a very small profit on an event and one of the nice things about Orienteering is it is almost entirely voluntary. But at a time when the government has cut our budget by about one third, we realistically need to be increasing the State and OA levies. Which in turn will increase entry fees. The simple fact is that Orienteering entry fees remain, in my view, ludicrously low, compared to what we offer and the level of administration and support we like to provide for the sport. Even if we had no mapping costs (all voluntary) we still have a cost per entrant of about $23. Our response for the Australian MTBO Champs is to charge enough to break even. And that will be about $35 per race. If I trot out the old comparison with other MTB national events we see how low Orienteering entry fees are: Scott 24 Hour $120/person, National XC Champs $80, NSW XC Champs $55. Adventure races and 100 km races are normally $100+. In foot-O it’s similar. Fun runs generally cost a lot more than O events and our non-navigation counterparts don’t have map costs. So without making any judgement of whether it’s a good or bad thing, Orienteering is way out of step with the general outdoor event market. 30 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
I would say; Orienteering, wake up! The principles of budget are really simple. You must spend less than you earn or you go bust. We can do this by either increasing income or reducing expenses. Given that memberships and entries have remained pretty much static for the last 30 years we realistically would have to say that we’re not going to get more income from greater participation in a hurry. Or we can increase entry fees. Reducing expenses means less services, fewer new maps, events closer to the members, etc. The choice is simple. Paul Darvodelsky
Start Times I refer to Ian Dodd’s letter in the June 2007 edition ‘Impatient Drivers NOT WELCOME’. This complained about aggressive overtaking on the roads leading to events. I offer no comment on the subject of the road driving problems of overtaking, tailgating, and road hogging except to say that there is a golden rule of driving – if some one wants to go faster than you do, let him. It doesn’t matter whether you are 500 km down the Gibb River track or 500 m from an orienteering event. Ian rightly points out that the ‘offenders’ may have been late for their starts. This begs the question – do we really need nominated or allocated start times for league events? Would participants be in a far more relaxed state of mind without the tyranny of the timetable? Is this a major disincentive to people entering? My suggestion is that we still have nominated times but on selected courses (hopefully all except elites) participants may start at any time subject to the starter’s control/discretion. This may take the form of all latecomers waiting until the end of all nominated starts, or, if the starter can cope, by slot-ins. My guess is that only a small proportion would be late and very few early. I accept that this may not be workable at major events such as Easter 3-Days. This may already be current practice at many events. What matters is how well the message is communicated to participants beforehand so no one has to feel under undue time pressure to get to the event. An alternative is to allocate start times at the assembly area, perhaps on a DIY basis by providing course start time labels that participants peel off and present to the starter. What would not be acceptable is a simple queuing system. We could have participants walking for 20 minutes to the start to find they are joining a line with possibly a 30 minute wait. It may help an understanding of the problem to appreciate the numbers involved. At the recent Eugowra ‘Seldom Seen’ (SL5) event in NSW, the entries per course (Red 5-9) were 14, 26, 40, 31 and 20. Entries for the lesser courses were all well below 20. Slot-ins would not have been difficult for the starter except perhaps for Red 7. The Victorians run their State League events totally on an ‘Enter on the Day’ basis which seems to work well. Some would grizzle about having to mark their own maps – not a problem for me. Hopefully we can successfully balance the needs of officialdom with customers. That’s right – customers, because that is how participants should be treated if bush orienteering is to survive. Jim Wells (Garingal, NSW)
N AT I O N A L O R I E N T E E R I N G L E A G U E
Victorian Nuggets almost sweep board in 2007 National League Blair Trewin
A
FTER a decade of dominance by the Canberra Cockatoos, the Victorian Nuggets had the best of the 2007 National League, taking out three of the four competitions. Only in the Junior Girls, which was taken out by the Queensland Cyclones, did they fall short. Victoria’s senior victories were largely a product of their superior depth. They had no superstars, except when Troy de Haas was around at Easter, but were able to put competitive teams out in virtually every race. No other State was able to do this for the women with any degree of consistency, and the Nuggets had that title virtually wrapped up with several rounds to go, although the Southern Arrows trimmed the margin a little at the end. In contrast, the Victorian men were pushed almost all the way by the Arrows, who led for much of the season but did not have the depth to cover the loss of Simon Uppill (at JWOC) and Kerrin Rattray (injured) for the final rounds. The NSW Stingers finished fast and pipped the Arrows for 2nd, but paid the price for fielding some under-strength teams mid-season and fell five points short. After being beaten only once in thirteen years, the Cockatoos crashed, often struggling to field full teams, especially in the men’s competition where they took the wooden spoon. Queensland’s depth saw them comfortable winners in the Junior Girls; Victoria were their only challengers, but any chance they had disappeared through being unable to cover the loss of Belinda Lawford to JWOC. The Junior Boys was fought out by Victoria and Tasmania, both spearheaded by two JWOC team members, but the Victorians had slightly superior depth which gave them the edge. A hot streak mid-season in which he won six out of seven races, combined with the failure of Dave Shepherd or Julian Dent to post eight scores, made Matt Crane a comfortable individual winner, despite returning to Britain before the final rounds. Grace Elson had to work harder before securing her title but still
Bruce Arthur manager of the victorious Victorian Nuggets seen here finishing 13th in the Australian Champs. Photo: Rob Preston
finished 19 points clear of Kathryn Ewels. Heather Harding was a similarly comfortable winner in the Junior Girls. The most interesting competition, thanks to the erratic performances of the contenders, was in the Junior Boys, which came down to the last control of the season. There were nine different race winners, and the points Tristan Lee put on the board during the Easter carnival were almost enough to get him across the line, but Kieran Sullivan – who was the only person to win three times during the season – came 3rd in the Australian Long-distance Championships, 5secs ahead of 4th, to score by a single point.
O R I E N T EERING P UB L ICATIONS IOF Publications
Australian Publications
International Specifications for‑Orienteering Maps . . . . . . . . . . $11.00 Competition rules for IOF events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $11.00 Control Descriptions. . . . . . . . . . . . $11.00 Simple Maps for Orienteering . . . . $11.00 Trail Orienteering (BOF book). . . . . $30.00 Trail Orienteering (booklet). . . . . . . . $8.25 Trail O (leaflet) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $0.70
Elementary Orienteering Instructors‑Manual. . . . . . . . . . . . . $13.20 Level 1 Coaching Manual. . . . . . . . $22.00 Level 1 Coaching Syllabus . . . . . . . . $3.90 Level 2 Coaching Syllabus . . . . . . . . $4.40 Level 3 Coaching Syllabus . . . . . . . . $4.40 Among the Best Orienteers (video).$19.75 Sponsorship & Advertising, 1996 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . available from states Club Guide, available on disc.
Prices include GST and postage within Australia for single copies. Prices for bulk orders available on request. Orders should be addressed to Orienteering Australia, PO Box 284 Mitchell BC 2911, with cheques made payable to Orienteering Australia. Email: orienteering@netspeed.com.au
Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority
Or ienteer ing Aus tr alia photo ar chi v e Photos that appear in The Australian Orienteer can be made available in a digital format for press releases or special promotional projects. Contact Peter Cusworth on 03 5968 5254 or cusworth@netspace.net.au Any material costs will be passed on to users.
SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 31
NUTRITION
Beat the heat with fruit In the sizzling summer heat, getting adequate fluids and electrolytes is a must, but most people are not properly hydrated even in the cooler months. Dehydration hinders physical and cognitive performance, and during exercise we can sweat as much as 2.5 litres of water per hour. Excessive fluid loss through sweat can cause a loss of electrolytes potassium and sodium, which can impair the function of vital organs like the heart. Dehydration can also cause headaches, muscle cramping, problems concentrating, dizziness, irritability, and fainting. And dehydration combined with sweltering temperatures can lead to potentially fatal heat exhaustion.
T
HE good news is electrolytes and even some fluids are readily available in foods like fresh fruit and vegetables. And the best part about summer is that it is easier than ever to get your minimum 5-A-Day of fresh produce. Summer offers a wider selection of ripe and juicy fruit and vegetables than any other season. In other words, eating your way to a healthy, fit body is as enjoyable as it is good for you. Here’s a list of some in-season fruit to kick off your summer with a fresh and fruity splash. Red, yellow or green, sweet or tart, crisp or mealy, no matter how you slice them, summer fresh apples are a good source of fibre. The pectin in apples is a soluble fibre, which can help in the management of high cholesterol. And the skins of apples contain antioxidant flavonoids and polyphenols - phytochemicals that can reduce free radical damage and help prevent oxidative diseases such as cancer and heart disease. Summer is the season for fresh figs. Fresh or dried, sweet figs are one of the highest fruit sources of fibre, and they also contain significant amounts of minerals potassium (great for replenishing losses in sweat), calcium, and iron. The rich colour of tender apricots gives away their rich content of beta-carotene (a precursor to vitamin A). Beta-carotene and vitamin C, both in apricots, are antioxidant vitamins. Sunsweetened apricots are also a good source of fibre and potassium. Take a bag of apricots with you to the gym (along with your water bottle, of course) and enjoy them as convenient pre- or postworkout snacks. Plums and peaches are ripe and ready these balmy months. Luscious peaches have beta-carotene and vitamin C as well as fibre. Purple and red plums have fibre and vitamin C, and the skins contain anthocyanidins - potent antioxidant phytochemicals. The berry family is in season and bursting with flavour. Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and more are high in fibre and vitamin C. The deep red and purple colour of the berries also indicate the presence of the phytochemicals anthocyanadins. Cherries are another summer ripe fruit that contain these wholesome nutrients as well. The tropical mangoes and papayas are irresistibly mouthwatering summer fruit. Succulent mangoes are rich in beta-carotene, vitamin C and fibre. In fact, just half a mango has over 100% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin A (as beta-carotene). Papaya is another rich source of beta-carotene, vitamin C and fibre, and also contains potassium and folate. Folate prevents developmental defects in foetuses and supports cardiovascular health. 32 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
And what would summer be without ice-cold, refreshing watermelon. All the melons, including cantaloupe and honeydew, are summer fruit. Cantaloupe with its peachy-orange flesh is so rich in beta-carotene and vitamin C, just _ of a medium cantaloupe has more than 100% of the recommended daily intake of both antioxidant vitamins. The melon contains vitamin C and potassium, and the honeydew is a good source of vitamin C. Juicy watermelon is a rich source of beta-carotene and vitamin C, and a good source of lycopene. Lycopene, most popularized in tomato products, is an antioxidant carotenoid that has been shown to prevent prostate cancer. With so many delectable fruits to choose from, there’s no reason not to get the minimum five servings a day. Fruit provides many nutrients, vitamins, and even some minerals that are essential for a healthy body. Explore the wide variety of natural flavours at every meal and as refreshing snacks. For variety, blend fruit with ice, organic nonfat milk or phytonutrient rich soy milk, and garnish with a fresh mint leaf for a light and frothy thirst quencher. For a sweeter phytonutritious smoothie, blend fruit with vanilla flavoured soy ice cream (available in health food stores). These tasty ice creams made from soy are much lower in saturated and total fat and calories than their dairy counterparts, are cholesterol free, and offer the various health benefits of soy. You can also blend fruit and filtered water or juice, freeze it in ice cube trays, and enjoy them in the shade. For quick and healthy snacks for the whole family, cut up a variety of summer fruit into a large bowl and keep it handy in the fridge. Add sliced fruit to fresh salads and heart healthy dishes like steamed fish, legumes and vegetables. Experiment with taste and texture with chopped fruit and nuts mixed into cooked, flavourful grains like wild rice and whole grain couscous. And if you enjoy sweet desserts, top them with fruit for added nutrition. Bring easy to carry fruit with you everywhere, to school, to work, to the gym, to the sports game, to picnics and parties. At your picnics and barbecues, have a variety of colourful, sun-ripened fruit available to munch on instead of saturated fat and calorie dense potato or macaroni salad and chips. With so many different fruits to choose from in the summer, you’ll never get bored with the delicious options. Summer is a great season to get started eating right and looking great. Drinking enough fresh water is absolutely necessary to keep your temperature regulated and your body functioning properly. A minimum of four litres of water per day is ideal, especially in hot weather. And if you exercise, be sure to drink several litres more depending on how much you sweat. In addition to drinking plenty of water, you can get the nutrients and electrolytes you need from a variety of potassium rich fruit and lightly salted nuts and seeds. This combination has the same electrolytes and fluids as in expensive sugary sports drinks, but the natural combination is much higher in vitamins, minerals, and a host of other healthy compounds only available in whole foods. Sports drinks are convenient and do help to replenish fluid and electrolyte losses in intense exercise, but they are simply less nutritious than whole fruit and fresh water. However, when it comes to avoiding dehydration, any fluid will suffice except for caffeine containing beverages, like coffee, tea, soft drinks, and alcoholic beverages. Caffeine and alcohol are diuretics which cause the body to lose water and become dehydrated. If you’re sipping iced tea by the pool, be sure it is caffeine free. So whether you’re exercising or just trying to stay cool, there’s nothing quite as tasty (and nutritious) as beating the heat with the thirstquenching fruit of summer. And with the abundance of choices this season, every day this summer can be a savoury experience. Reprinted from SupermarketGuru.com
TOP EVENTS 2007 2007
2008
October 5 Australian Sprint Championships, Canberra ACT
March 21-24 Australian 3-Days Dubbo, NSW aus3days2008.orienteering.asn.au
October 1-7 Oceania Championships & ANZ Schools Test Match Canberra ACT http://www.oceania2007.com
June 28 WMOC 2008 -July 5 Marinha Grande, Portugal www.wmoc2008.fpo.pt
November 3-4 Australian MTB-O Championships, nr Newcastle, NSW
Dec 27-31 Christmas 5 Days, Newcastle NSW http://newcastle.nsw.orienteering. socialfx.net
June 29- JWOC 2008 July 7 Gothenberg, Sweden www.gmok.nu/jwoc2008
July 10-20 WOC 2008 Olomouc, Czech Republic www.woc2008.cz
July 21-25 O-Ringen 2008 Dalarna, Sweden www.oringen.com/dalarna2008
July 25-30 APOC 2008 South Korea www.apoc2008.kr
July 30- Aug 8
Nordvestgallopen 2008 Voss/Bergen, Norway
Aug 3-9 Creoso 5 Day Wales Aug 24-31 MTB-WOC 2008 and MTB-JWOC 2008 Ostróda, Poland www.mtbo.pl/woc2008/
Sept 20-28 Australian Championships Carnival Maryborough, QLD www.oq.asn.au/2008austchamps Sept 30 Australian MTB-O Championships -Oct 1 Maryborough, QLD www.oq.asn.au/2008austchamps
2009
April 10-13 Australian 3-Days The Royal Easter O, Launceston, Tasmania www.tasorienteering.asn.au
tba JWOC 2009 Trentino, Italy www.jwoc2009.it
VICTORINOX AWARD The quarterly Victorinox Award goes to Simon Uppill for his excellent performances in JWOC2007 including a 4th place podium finish in the Classic longdistance race. Simon will receive a Victorinox Voyager with 20 tools and features including a watch/alarm/timer; retail value $109.95.
Advertise your event in The Australian Orienteer You can have a 6 x 8 cm event ad for just $50. In colour, if we have room, otherwise black and white.
July 19-24 O-Ringen 2009 Smaland, Sweden www.oringen.com/smaland2009
Aug 2-8 Scottish 6-Days Tayside, Scotland www.scottish6days.com/2009/ Aug 2-8
Swiss O Week Muotatal, Switzerland www.swiss-o-week.ch
Aug 18-23 WOC 2008 Miskolc, Hungary www.woc2009.hu
tba MTB-WOC 2008 and MTB-JWOC 2008 Israel
Oct 10-17 WMOC 2009 Lithgow NSW www.nsw.orienteering.asn.au
Send artwork to The Editor: mikehubbert@ozemail.com.au SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 33
34 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
ORIENTEERING IN THE RED CENTRE
Orienteering in Alice Springs Alice Springs got a real taste of Orienteering in July when nearly 300 rogainers and orienteers descended on the central Australian desert town. They were there for the 2007 Australian Rogaining Championships held at nearby Ross River Resort. Lead-up events during the preceding week included a Park & Street-O score event which started in the middle of town and a bush-O event at the Telegraph Station Historical Reserve. Morning shoppers and café lizards in Todd Mall and nearby streets gazed in amazement as runners and walkers in gaily coloured outfits went here and there in seemingly aimless fashion, all the time staring at pieces of paper in their hands and occasionally bending down to the ground to do something with a red & white plate chained to a fence or lightpole. Jenny and John Sheahan (VIC) drafted the map in Melbourne then added lastminute fieldwork the night before the event, and set the course. The local press turned up with a reporter and a photographer to take photos and copious notes about how Orienteering was growing in popularity as a lifestyle sport around Australia. To her credit the reporter knew about Hanny Allston winning the World Orienteering Championship Sprint title last year. Word gets around ! The next edition of the Centralian Advocate later that week featured a page-and-a-half of Orienteering photos and text. The following day saw more enthusiasts take to the bush at the original Telegraph Station to sample the rock and dry creek beds and thorny bushes of central Australia. The terrain was much like that at Dubbo without the trees and grass. Great rocky outcrops rising from plains of sand and gibber (small sharp rocks). There was abundant evidence of water flow along the sandy creek beds but not a drop of water was to be seen at this time of year. Much of the undergrowth (is it still called ‘undergrowth’ when there’s no overgrowth?) was dead making passage difficult in many places. The remainder was largely spiky bushes with spiky grasses just lying in wait to deposit spiky seeds in your socks and shoes. No matter, navigation was often an interesting challenge – do we go around the rock outcrops through the spiky grasses or take a more direct route over the crumbling and ancient rock formations? John and Jeffa Lyon (SA) set several courses with enough challenge for those who wanted it but an easy run for the not-so-serious competitors. Then to Ross River Resort where some 300 rogainers gathered for the 2007 Australian Rogaining Championships. Jon Potter of Darwin’s Top End Orienteers was responsible for dreaming up the location and facilities for this event, entitled Yeperenye Yaw, and
Allan & Pat Miller(
what an event it was ! With the Hash House set in the beautiful surrounds of Ross River it was always going to be a magical event. Yeperenye, the giant caterpillar, is important in the rock art and creation stories of the local Arrernta people who understand that their Dreaming, or Altyerra, which was established during the creation period, remains within the landscape around them today. Yaw, a verb, refers to a temporary deviation from a straight route. Combine these two words and you have a Rogaining experience unlike any other – ancient sea beds tilted at 70 degrees to form fantastic crumbling rock strata in deep red and ochre colours with hardy eucalypt and mulga trees clinging to any available nook or cranny. Spiky spinifex guarding the approaches to rocky knolls and even more rocky gullies where wallabies and control flags might lurk. Camel footprints on the tracks and bird life galore in the bushes and trees. Hundreds of bright yellow and green budgerigars flying in formation from tree to tree and chirping their familiar call as they go. Little finches of various kinds flitting here and there and hawks and eagles soaring slowly overhead searching for the next meal. Amongst the information provided, competitors were told that horses on the course were friendly; camels docile and apparently on a permanent valium drip; emus were lunatics and severely in need of medication; snakes were sleeping; dingoes were watching and howling from a distance; eagles and kites were magnificent; kangaroos ratbags; donkeys were bread thieves; rock wallabies gorgeous but secretive; cattle were cattle, and crows and noisy miners steal anything that isn’t bolted down. This event was a unique experience thoroughly enjoyed by all who took part. There could not be a more magnificent region to hold a Rogaine. For the record, the Men’s Open Australian Champions were Joel Mackay & Philip Whitten (NSW) and the Women’s Open Australian Champions Susie Sprague & Selina Stoute (ACT). On the flip side, Rogaining suffers from two problems which limit its attraction and potential to grow. They are the maps with poorly drawn detail; and misplaced controls on features which are either dubiously drawn on the map or are just plain wrong. There were examples of both at the Yeperenye Yaw event. Problems like this limit the enjoyment factor, which is a real pity. Rogaining also suffers from an inflexible administrative hierarchy similar to the difficulties seen in Athletics and Swimming in the 60s and 70s. They need to recognise that they are there to help competitors (their customers) rather than bind them with red tape. Athletics and Swimming have moved on. Rogaining needs to catch up.
SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 35
ORIENTEERING IN THE RED CENTRE
Scale 1:33,000 contours 10m
Sheik Joy Marston (VIC) at control #63
Organiser Jon Potter (NT)
Rock solid trophies
36 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
APOC 2008
SEOUL, KOREA
APOC 2008
Asia Pacific Orienteering Championships 2008 Asian Orienteering Championships 2008 Seoul, Korea July 25 – 30, 2008 The Korea Orienteering Federation (KOF) are proud to host the 15th Asia Pacific Orienteering Championships (APOC) and the 1st Asian Orienteering Championships (AOC) to be held in July 2008. The event, co-sponsored by the Korea Tourism Organization and Seoul Metropolitan Government, will offer participants a unique orienteering experience and a chance to visit dynamic Seoul. We welcome all of our orienteering friends from around the world to join in the fun and excitement!
Preliminary Program
Contact information
July 25, 2008 (Fri): Model Event, Registration July 26, 2008 (Sat): Sprint, Opening Ceremony July 27, 2008 (Sun): Long July 28, 2008 (Mon): Rest Day July 29, 2008 (Tue): Middle July 30, 2008 (Wed): Relay, Closing Ceremony
The Entry Form is in Bulletin 2 which can be downloaded from the website.
Korea Orienteering Federation Tel 82-2-318-2164 Fax 82-2-318-6005 Email: info@apoc2008.kr website: www.apoc2008.kr
SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER
37
NEWS
Australia-New Zealand Challenge 2007 Australian Team The Australian team to contest the 2007 AUS-NZL Challenge has been named. The competition will be staged near Canberra over two days: •S aturday 6 October. Oceania Long Distance Championships at Boboyan Divide, at the southern end of Namadgi National Park. •S unday 7 October. Oceania Relay Championships at Antills Creek about 25 kms south of Canberra off the Captains Flat Road. W16 Krystal Neumann, Nadia Velaitis, Melanie Neumann. R1 Tamara Orr, R2 Claire Butler W18 Belinda Lawford, Bridget Anderson, Ineka Booth. R1 Aislinn Prendergast, R2 Brea Pearce W20 Heather Harding, Rachel Effeney, Jess Davis. W21 to be announced. W35 Natasha Key, Thor Egerton, Wendy Read. R1 Louise Fairfax W40 Nicola Dalheim, Clare Leung, Christine Marshall. R1 Karen Blatchford, R2 Su Yan Tay. W45 Anthea Feaver, Louise Fairfax, Jenny Bourne. R1 Gayle QuantockSimson, R2 Felicity Crosato (R3 Carol Harding, R4 Lisa Lampe) W50 Sue Neve, Robin Uppill, Carolyn Jackson. R1 Debbie Davey, R2 Hilary Wood. W55 Lynn Dabbs, Jacquie Rand, Meredyth Sauer. R1 Alison Radford.
PROFILE
Vale Peter Jackson 1950-2007 Peter Jackson passed away on Wednesday, July 11 after a two-year battle against cancer. He was a major contributor to the sport in Victoria over a period of three decades, including a stint as VOA President during the first half of the 1990’s, and later roles as the VOA’s Mapping Officer, a member of the VOA’s Technical Committee and a regular controller for many years. He was a mainstay of the Rockhoppers club for most of its existence, and later became a founder member of the Melbourne Forest Racers. Peter was also a serious competitor at the masters level. He had numerous championship placings to his name, and won two national titles, in 1988 (M35A) and 1998 (M45A) from 24 starts. As recently as last October, with his illness well advanced, he took out the resident title in M55A at the Victorian Long Distance Championships, and was second in M55AS at Easter in his last major event. He will also be a significant loss to the Australian scientific community. Until last year he was head of the Co-operative Research Centre for Clean Power Generation, and was a leader in the effort to develop methods of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power stations. The Australian orienteering community extends its deepest sympathies to Peter’s wife Carolyn, and their children Adrian, Melinda and Timothy. Blair Trewin
W60 Debbie Gale, Jenny Hawkins, Ruth Goddard. R1 Jean Baldwin, R2 Val Brammall. W65 Dale Ann Gordon, Ann Ingwersen, Janet Tarr. R1 Emily Quantock, R2 Helen Smith. W70 Maureen Ogilvie, Jeffa Lyon, Sue Mount. R1 Sue Healy. M16 Joshua Blatchford, Lachlan Dow, Oscar Phillips. R1 Kurt Neumann, R2 Oliver Crosato. M18 Tristan Lee, Simon Mee, Leon Keely. R1 Anthony Brown, R2 Callum Fagg. M20 Louis Elson, Morten Neve, Rob Fell. R1 Nick Andrewartha, R2 Rhys Challen. M21 to be announced. M35 Scott Simson, Graham Turner, Chris Helliwell. R1 Shane Trotter. M40 Paul Liggins, Martin Wehner, Jim Russell. R1 Tim Hatley, R2 Tim McIntyre. M45 Rob Vincent, Mark Nemeth, Mark Darvodelsky. R1 Bjorn Mella, R2 Andrew McComb. (R3 Mike Dowling) M50 Geoff Lawford, Chris Norwood, Roch Prendergast. R1 Ross Coyle, R2 Nick Wilmott. M55 Hugh Moore, Nigel Davies, Greg Hawthorne. R1 David Marshall, R2 Derek Morris. M60 Robert Allison, Tony Simpkins, Greg Chatfield. R1 Rob Tucker, R2 Trevor Sauer. M65 Alex Tarr, Peter Prime, Tim Dent. R1 John Hodsdon, R2 Ted Mulherin. M70 John Lyon, Clive Pope, Robin Simson. R1 Barry Hanlon, R2 George Reeves.
Peter competing at the Easter 3-days in Burra this year. Photo: Bob Mouatt 38 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
NEWS
IOF Anti-doping The International Orienteering Federation (IOF) has decided to introduce blood testing for haemoglobin control as part of its anti-doping activities. As a first step, all elite runners participating in the World Cup events in Mjölby, Sweden, on 23 – 25 July 2007 were tested. The IOF engaged Professor Bengt Saltin, who has been a member of the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) expert panel, to organise the blood tests and the analysis of the blood. The first blood testing took place on 22 July, and in the following three days repeat testing was performed before the start and just after the finish on 40 runners on 23 July and on 70 runners on 24 July and 25 July. In several sports, testing of athletes’ haemoglobin concentration in the blood has been a regular procedure since the 1990s. In some of these sports, specific rules exist in regard to how high the haemoglobin or the haematocrit levels can be in order for the athlete to be allowed to start in an event. At this stage, the IOF has not defined the maximum values. Thus, regardless of the value recorded, there were no start prohibitions in this World Cup event. The athletes involved in the testing were informed about their own values.
Ski orienteering in tunnel! The first ski tunnel in the world was completed 1997 in Vuokatti in northern Finland. The length is 1.2 km and the width 8 metres which makes it possible to train both classical and free technique. The height difference is 18 metres and total climb 51 metres. The temperature in the tunnel is –2 and – 7C°; temperatures down to –18 C° are possible. The tunnel is open from May to December and also in winter at times when it is too cold to ski outdoors. And now there has been a Ski-O event inside the tunnel! Map via OL, Switzerland. www.vuokattisportsinstitute.com
WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Shelagh & Colin O’Brien Formerly of EVOC club in Tasmania, Shelagh and Colin are now managing Glen Helen Resort, some 150km west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. They said they miss Orienteering and are hoping there will be some more events staged
Vale Antony White Antony, of OH-S, died unexpectedly on 22 June, of a heart attack. He was a geophysicist who taught at Flinders University, and did research in magnetic and electromagnetic phenomena in the Earth with an international group of collaborators.
Glen Helen gorge
Shelagh & Colin O’Brien
near Alice Springs in the future. The Resort is just 10min walk from the beautiful Glen Helen gorge where up to ten species of native fish survive in the pools of the Finke River. And the endangered black-footed rock wallaby can be seen bounding across the slopes below spectacular red cliffs across the river from the lodges. Shelagh & Colin can be contacted at info@glenhelen.com.au
Support our sponsors and support your sport
SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 39
Ukraine Maps
Victorian Orienteering Championships 2007 Castlemaine area Middle Distance: October 20 Map: Deadman’s Flat 1:7500
Long Distance: October 21 Map: Spring Gully 1:10000
Pre-entry both events: closes Sept 22, 2007 More Details: www.vicorienteering.asn.au/ Tel: 03 9017 3617 email: don.fell@bigpond.com or ruthg@netspace.net.au 40 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
Advertise your event in The Australian Orienteer You can have a 6 x 8 cm event ad for just $50. In colour, if we have room, otherwise black and white.
Send artwork to The Editor: mikehubbert@ozemail.com.au
WORLD ORIENTEERING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Ukraine hosts WOC2007 The World Orienteering Championships (WOC) were held in and around Kiev, Ukraine, during August 16 – 26. As you read this the competitions will be completed and the results known. How did the AUS Team go? We will have in-depth coverage of WOC2007 in the December edition of this magazine.
W
E can be sure that the competition was Hanny Allston after winning the 2006 Sprint World Championship in Denmark fierce, the maps and terrain complex (see opposite page) and that some relatively new faces stood on the podiums for the first time, as Hanny Allston did herself in the Sprint, and then with fellow Relay runners Jo Allison and Grace Elson, last year. We can also be sure that the event as a whole was a spectacle for the spectators who were there and for the millions who followed coverage of the races on the Internet. Media coverage of WOC events has increased by leaps and bounds in recent years, due mainly to vastly improved Finish arena designs and to technological advances like automatic radio controls and GPS tracking which enable commentators at the Finish to give real-time coverage of competitors’ progress around the course. Their commentary goes out not only to spectators nearby but also to many more enthusiastic orienteers following the events on the Internet. All this is great for advancing public recognition for our sport, but requirements for hosting World Orienteering Championships are becoming more complex and onerous. In order to make World Cup and WOC events more attractive to media coverage the International Orienteering Federation (IOF) expects nations which apply to host future World Cup and WOC events to guarantee some form of TV coverage, whether live or news clips for replay. That probably means that we will not see another WOC or World Cup in Australia (or New Zealand) in the foreseeable future. That’s a pity, but it’s also progress and it is to be hoped that Orienteering here in Australia can benefit from the spin-off of greater media recognition. That’s our challenge for the future.
Hanny, Grace Elson and Jo Allison on the podium after last year’s Relay World Champs.
SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 41
MTB WOC 2007
Three Top-20 placings for AUS Team in Czech Republic
The 2007 MTB-WOC started with a Sprint around the World Cup biathlon venue of Hotel Ski near Nove Mesto Na Morave. The map, a maze of tracks at 1:5,000, made the best use of the area. Weather conditions were ideal with a temperature of 26 degrees. Alex Randall placed 14th overall, (only 30sec off the podium and 1:09 behind the winner Torbjoern Gasbjerg from Denmark). Czech television showed the Sprint live. Tuesday was a typically hot day for the Czech Republic and the Middle-distance race near the village of Zubri, not far from Nove Mesto. The forest was a maze of fast forest roads and tracks and very small, indistinct and bumpy forest working tracks. Great results for Australia with two men in the Top-25 - Paul Darvodelsky placed 18th, just 5.30 min behind the winner and David Simpfendorfer placed 25th in 56.27min. Thorlene Egerton had a mistake free ride to place 37th in 59.09min. The Russian girl Ksenia Chernykh repeated her win from the Sprint with a time of 46.45min.
control which saw him placed in the forties at that stage. Russia’s Ruslan Gritsan won in a time of 86:48. In the Women’s 29km A-Final Thorlene Egerton, in her first WOC, rode a strong race to place 33rd in a time 110 minutes. The consistent Michaela Gigon (Austria) took her first gold of the carnival with a time of 92mins, two minutes ahead of Ksenia Chernkyh (Russia) who obtained her 3rd individual medal.
IAN DALTON
Weather conditions for the Long-distance Final turned out to be different with mist being the order of the day but the rain held off for the competition. Alex Randall placed an extremely good 18th overall (96.57) in the 35km A-Final after losing 4mins on an early
Alex Randall powering down the finish chute at the World Champs.
THOR EGERTON
Paul Darvodelsky broke through for his first Top20 placing at a World Championships when he took out 18th place in the Middle-distance event, despite shearing off a pedal when two controls out from the Finish and having to run his bike in. And Alex Randall continued his excellent form at MTB-WOC events with 14th place in the Sprint and 18th in the Long-distance event.
THOR EGERTON
Darvo finishing the Long race.
Above: The team sporting their smart Cycling Australia based team uniforms, from left: Alex Randall, Thor Egerton, Tony Clark, Kay Haarsma (Coach), David Simpfendorfer, Paul Darvodelsky, David Woods.
Darvo running the finish chute in the Middle Dist race after shearing off his pedal 3 controls out. Despite this he still managed 18th place, his first top 20 result in MTB WOC.
42 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
IAN DALTON
IAN DALTON
2007 MTB-WOC Results, Czech Republic SPRINT DISTANCE – Monday August 6th Men – 4.00km, 130m climb, 13 controls, 83 riders 1 Torbjoern Gasbjerg Denmark 15.05 2 Jeremie Gillmann France 15.15 3 Anton Foliforov Russia 15.17 14 Alex Randall Australia 16.14 45 Michal Glowacki New Zealand 18.00 45 David Simpfendorfer Australia 18.00 50 Paul Darvodelsky Australia 18.12 72 Tony Clark Australia 21.35 Women – 3.40km, 115m, 10 controls, 55 riders 1 Ksenia Chernykh Russia 13.51 2 Michaela Gigon Austria 14.27 3 Hana Bajtosova Slovakia 14.39 dsq Thorlene Egerton Australia – MIDDLE DISTANCE – Tuesday August 7th Men – 12.50km, 170m, 18 controls, 110 riders 1 Mika Tervala Finland 50.21 2 Jeremie Gillmann France 52.44 3 Lubomir Tomecek Czech Republic 52.46 18 Paul Darvodelsky Australia 56.00 25 David Simpfendorfer Australia 56.57 56 David Wood Australia 63.17 58 Michal Glowacki New Zealand 63.46 61 Tony Clark Australia 64.34 63 Alex Randall Australia 64.39
Dave Simpfendorfer, aka “Larry” David Wood Tony waiting for the Relay start.
LONG DISTANCE – Friday August 10th Men – 23.10km, 670m, 18 controls, 60 riders 1 Ruslan Gritsan Russia 86.48 2 Lasse Brun Pedersen Denmark 89.45 3 Jaroslav Rygl Czech Republic 91.50 18 Alex Randall Australia 96.57 33 Paul Darvodelsky Australia 102.33 44 Michal Glowacki New Zealand 107.47 53 David Simpfendorfer Australia 115.43 Men “B” Final 10 Tony Clark 13 David Wood
Australia Australia
IAN DALTON
Women – 9.20km, 140m, 14 controls, 65 riders 1 Ksenia Chernykh Russia 46.45 2 Hana Bajtosova Slovakia 47.39 3 Marketa Jiraskova Czech Republic 47.41 37 Thorlene Egerton Australia 59.09 59 Kay Haarsma Australia 91.24
And they’re off…
91.18 93.23
Women – 19.40km, 575m, 17 controls, 58 riders 1 Michaela Gigon Austria 92.10 2 Ksania Chernykh Russia 94.09 3 Christine Schaffner Switzerland 95.25 33 Thorlene Egerton Australia 110.46 RELAY – Saturday August 11th Men 1 France 132.03 2 Czech Rep 132.36 3 Denmark 133.17 4 Russia 133.23 5 Finland 133.48 6 Switzerland 135.08 15 Paul, David S, Alex 154.59 26 Tony, David W, Thor 176.11 Women 1 Finland 2 Russia 3 Austria 4 France 5 Switzerland 6 Denmark No AUS Team
Men’s Middle Distance map
114.58 118.39 119.03 122.13 123.33 123.40
SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 43
MTB-O NEWS
The MTB-O pages supported by Warren and Tash Key from The MELBOURNE BICYCLE CENTRE, CLIFTON HILL – ph. 03 9489 5569
Blake Gordon OA MTB-O Coordinator
Vale Peter Jackson The Aussie team of 6 men and 3 women (see AO-June’07) selected in April was significantly reduced when three Victorians could not make the trip. With the death of Peter Jackson, Carolyn and Adrian Jackson withdrew from the team in late July and Kath Copland had previously been forced to withdraw. I have included the message the Jackson family sent to orienteers: “We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all those wonderful orienteers who have supported us throughout our ordeal. To those who gave us practical support, those who visited Peter while he spent long months in hospital and all those cards and messages both during his illness and after Peter’s passing. Last of all, a huge thank you to the countless number of orienteers who came to Peter’s funeral to both support us and celebrate his life. Your love and care has made such a difference and helped us to get through. We will never forget what you all have done.”
2007 National Championships near Newcastle, NSW With organiser Paul Darvodelsky overseas at the World Championships in Czech Republic, Andrew Slattery (mapper) and Terry Bluett (event adviser) have made this brief report on this year’s nationals. Areas: near Newcastle Events – Middle-distance Sat morning November 3 - Sprint Sat afternoon – Long-distance Sun morning November 4 Maps: Middle-distance (1:15 000) – complex track network with motor bike and vehicle tracks from fast to slow riding, numerous open areas and linking tracks; terrain is undulating to hilly. Sprint (1:10 000) – adjacent to the Middle-distance area Long-distance (1:15 000) – numerous motorbike tracks linking well-used vehicle tracks; tracks vary from rocky to clay and sand; track rideability - easy to medium with difficult on motor bike tracks; large open areas easily crossable; terrain varies from hilly to undulating. Website: Entry form and website should be available in late August Status: three national ranking events in two days (similar to WA in 2006). This event will be two World Ranking Events for the Men and Women Elite classes – so a great chance for elite riders to improve their ranking on the world list.
Australia / New Zealand Challenge The National Championships in Newcastle will now be the 3rd Australia / New Zealand Challenge. Michael Wood (NZOF MTB-O Convenor) has nominated M21 Elite, W21 Elite, Men 40-, Women 40-, Men 50-, Women 50-, and Men 60- as the classes that New Zealand will contest. NOTE: Australian MTB-O orienteers who wish to be selected in the Australian team should notify Peta Whitford, Chairperson of Selectors, by September 10th at voa@netspace.net.au 44 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
The main aim of the event is to get participation numbers as high as possible – over 160 would challenge the record set in Queensland in 2004. So underline these dates on your calendar now and plan a full week (NSW Championships are scheduled for the 27th and 28th of October – the week before the Nationals) of MTB-O action! Australia won the first Challenge in 2003 – New Zealand won the second in January 2005. Will you influence the result in 2007?
2008 National MTB-O Series Plans are well underway for the next step in the development of MTB-O in Australia. 2008 will see a national series with 8 events distributed over 3 rounds. The national series is a simple extension of the current selection trial / state championship model: Round 1: Middle, Sprint, Long – April 19th & 20th in Victoria (Ballarat and Maldon areas) Round 2: Middle, Sprint, Long – September 30th & October 1st in Queensland (Maryborough area) Round 3: Middle & Sprint – November 1st and 2nd in ACT (Corin Forest area) These national events will bring together the best fields of competitors in all age classes. The series aims to develop interest in MTB-O competition across the year – rather than only in November. The competition in 2008 will focus on individuals in Men 21- and Women 21- classes. The IOF WRE point scoring system will be used with 40 points to the winner, 36 to 2nd place, 32 to 3rd place and so on down to 25th place. Ranking in M-16, W-16, M-20, W-20, M40-, W 40-, M50-, W50-, M60-, W60-, M70-, W70- will be calculated with future State teams competition in 2009 or 2010 in mind. The competition model for 2008 will be tested at the 2007 National Championships near Newcastle, NSW. This series will build on the present strength in Elite and Masters classes and encourage Junior participation at the national level. The pathways to the 2008 MTB-JWOC and future MTB-WMOC will be established in NSW at the 2007 National MTB-O Championships.
2008 World MTB-O Champs – introducing the MTB-JWOC! The August 2007 IOF meetings in Czech Republic will add detail to planning the inaugural MTB-JWOC at the same time and venue as the senior MTB-WOC, August 24th to August 31st in Ostroda, Poland. The selectors strongly encourage Junior riders in the M-16, W-16, M–20 and W-20 age classes to compete in the 2007 National titles as the first step toward representing Australia at the 2008 MTB-JWOC. So write these dates down in your training diary for 2008 – the year of the first MTB-JWOC.
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Alex Randall finishing the Middle Distance race in the Czech Republic. Alex has now competed in all five MTB-O World Champs.
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A PRESIDENT’S PERSPECTIVE
The Third Instalment of the Final Tetralogy Bob Mouatt
The third instalment of my final tetralogy is about development and participation and much of it will be based on the views of others. I read the first comment very early in my orienteering career and it had a marked impact on my future activities in the sport. The Importance of a Welcoming Introduction “I would, however, like to take this opportunity to sound a word of warning: if the promotion of Orienteering is to be successful, not only must new customers be attracted to the sport, they must experience efficiently organised and well run events, and be willing to keep coming back for more. If they go away disgruntled because we cannot handle the extra numbers or provide the information needed for beginners, our image will be worse than if we had not sought to attract them in the first place.” These were the opening remarks by the late Keith Curry, in his report as Publicity Officer to the 1978 ACTOA Annual General Meeting. It is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. Over the past 10 years I have spent each summer as a mentor at the OACT’s Twilight series and there is no doubt new orienteers appreciate a welcoming introduction. Unfortunately, few orienteers are comfortable in performing this role and thus not all newcomers to the sport experience a welcoming introduction, hence we probably need a different approach and I will expand on that later.
The Importance of Maintaining and Increasing Participation The second point of view is a summation of some comments made during a liaison meeting on 17 May 2007 with Bob Kershaw our sports consultant at the ASC. The point he was making was that many sports spend considerable time and effort in trying to secure sponsorships from external organisations when they really have nothing much to offer sponsors. The best source of funding is from within, from members, from participants, from spectators (if relevant). Increasing members and increasing participation is the best way to increase income. On the matter of participation, I consider there is scope for increasing participation many fold, but not necessarily in bush orienteering. The only limiting factor is the ability to cope with demand and that is easily overcome if the organisers are willing to consider the available options. For example, to cope with the demand at its Twilight events, OACT introduced pre-marked maps as, when the numbers reached 160 to 200 per event, there was no way that the master map approach could cope with the numbers in the time available. OACT also uses SportIdent equipment for self-starting and self-finishing and locally developed software which copes with groups (even large groups) and multiple newcomers. The major impediment to the efficacy of OACT events is the poor keyboard skills of many of the computer operators. 46 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
This could be overcome if OACT were to engage highly efficient keyboard operators. (OACT offers standard orienteering courses at all of its events, with individual start times, not score events and mass starts as happens in some other States). There is also scope for Orienteering to conduct events aimed specifically at the high value end of the market, eg corporate activities, adventure racing with high expectation and higher than normal entry fees. These could be conducted without detriment to mainstream orienteering, but there would have to be a different approach to the way the events were presented. Selective Employment of Paid Officers I often hear people say, “We have too many events”, but I disagree as the average participation in Park & Street orienteering is increasing, which suggests that there are not too many events, but more likely not enough officials to service the demand. Thus the key to servicing increased participation is having enough officials. If Orienteering is to grow it must be managed as a business, and if there are insufficient voluntary officials, consideration must be given to the selective employment of paid officers to undertake some of the work that volunteers do not want to perform or do not perform effectively. Ben Rattray also advanced a similar view in his column in the June 2007 edition of The Australian Orienteer. There are many who begrudge people being paid small amounts to perform tasks, but my view is that they should be grateful that somebody is performing tasks that they don’t wish to do. Such tasks include, mentoring new orienteers, processing results, reporting results to the media, placing results on websites, etc. All of these activities are important to the development of Orienteering and if they are not done the sport could decline. The simple life of the 1970s is gone and Orienteering must change if it is to remain relevant to the potential new orienteers of today.
Sports Au s t r a l i a n
F o u n d a t i o n
Support your Sport through taxdeductible donations to the Australian Sports Foundation Check out the details and download the donor’s form from
www.orienteering.asn.au
ORIENTEERING AUSTRALIA
Kay Grzadka
My first four months in the position of Executive Officer for Orienteering Australia have been busy and the time has passed very quickly. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support, encouragement and patience as I continue to learn the ropes.
Board Meeting, Dubbo The Board of Orienteering Australia met recently in Dubbo during the very successful Junior World Orienteering Championships carnival. Orienteering Australia’s newly appointed officers, Rob Preston (Manager, High Performance) and Bert Elson (Manager, Coaching & Officiating Development), were welcomed to the meeting. Their positions were created as a result of the restructure of the Head Coach position, formerly occupied by Tom Quayle. The following matters are currently under action by the Board and were discussed at the meeting: •A rranging the provision of public liability insurance for directors and officers of Orienteering Australia; •C hanging the Constitution and Member Protection policy as foreshadowed in the previous edition of The Australian Orienteer; •D eveloping guidelines for the distribution of functions across national, state and club levels when holding major orienteering events; •C ontinuing discussion with the International Orienteering Federation over the World Cup qualification process; •P reparing a discussion paper for the Annual Conference on continuing Orienteering Australia’s support for the position of Vice President, International Orienteering Federation; •U pgrading the Orienteering Australia website in general and in particular: posting the 2008 National Fixtures List; furthering the capabilities of the Results database; and developing an adventure racing portal; •D ocumenting strategies for the reporting of injuries and other incidents to the national body by State associations, and for the resolution of conflict; •P reparing a submission to the International Conference on Orienteering Mapping being held in Kiev during the World Orienteering Championships; •D eveloping guidelines for organising major orienteering carnivals; •A ssessing and updating the Sponsorship policy and the Junior Sports policy; •P lanning for the sponsorship and promotion of the 2008 season and teams; •D efining the criteria for selection into the ACT Academy of Sport squad; •A ssisting State Associations to develop plans for improving National Orienteering League development and participation; •S eeking Council approval for the 2008 Mountain Bike Orienteering National League events; and
•P reparing for the Australia – New Zealand Challenge being held as part of the Oceania Championships to be held around Canberra in October. Preparation includes the provision of uniform tops and badges.
Annual Conference The Board is also preparing various other items and papers for the Annual Conference which will be held at the Australian National University on the first weekend in December. A major item for this year’s conference is the re-appointment of the coaching panel.
Bushrangers Team for Oceania Championships The 2007 Oceania Carnival based in Canberra in October will see the New Zealand Pinestars battle with the Australian Bushrangers for the Key/Aspin Trophy. The Pinestars were victorious in the first series at the Waitangi Weekend in New Zealand in February. The Bushrangers are Australia’s Development Team, with emphasis based on giving athletes valuable experience in quality competition and team environments. THE BUSHRANGERS TEAM (and the races they will contest): Women: Vanessa Round (all) Jasmine Neve (all) Tracy Bluett (all) Briohny Davey (sprint, mid, long) Men: Kerrin Rattray (all) Reuben Smith (all) Simon Uppill (sprint, long, relay) Chris Naunton (sprint, mid, long) Ryan Smyth (sprint, middle, long) Julian Dent (middle, sprint) David Shepherd (middle) NEW ZEALAND PINESTARS TEAM Women: Jenni Adams Penny Kane Lise Moen Lara Prince Men: James Bradshaw Greg Flynn Neil Kerrison Ross Morrison Jamie Stewart The test match will take place at the Oceania Middle, Sprint, Long and Relay Championships. Rob Preston
Executive Matters
SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 47
AUSAD5ORIENT 0507
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