BIG MISTAKES MACE NEVE (Canberra Cockatoos) headed towards the Finish in 3rd place on the first leg of the SILVA National Orienteering League Relays. She was going well, but where was that last control?
24.375 competitors in 2008!
She got to the run-in bunting in full view of spectators and the Finish but she hadn’t found the last control at the saddle between the mounds. Perhaps she thought it would be at the end of the bunting – it wasn’t. She hesitated, looked at her map, hesitated some more, looked up, looked down, looked up again, then finally figured that the control must be amongst the trees behind her. So she trotted back. Meanwhile, younger sister Jasmine (Victorian Nuggets) ran down from the last control and into the Finish, bringing the Nuggets up to 3rd place on the first leg. Mace lost over 2min40sec with this mistake and it may well have cost the Canberra Cockatoos eventual first place in the Relays. The Nuggets took 1st, beating the Cockatoos by 3min05sec but, if the time Mace lost is subtracted, the race down the Finish chute on the final leg between Jo Allison and a fast-finishing Kathryn Ewels would have been very, very close.
World Champs 08
- The World’s Greatest Orienteering Event -
Men’s Middledistance Final
18-24 July
Swiss star DANIEL HUBMANN was just 8sec down on leader Thierry Gueorgiou of France at control #8, and 25sec ahead of eventual bronze medallist Valentin
Welcome to Småland in southern Sweden! O-Ringen town will be located just west of the city of Eksjö. Welcome to a very compact event: Three of the five stages will finish next-door to O-Ringen town and the other 2 stages 3 km to the northwest, just a short bike ride or shuttle bus ride away.
Order the map now! All five stages of O-Ringen 2009 will be within the area shown on the above map. Order the map, in scale 1:15.000, and start preparing for the races. (Can be ordered from the website www.oringen.se).
Accomodations Service Various types of accomodations are available. Camping or caravan sites in O-Ringen town, military barracks or rentals (apartments, houses, club cabins and caravans) are all offered via the website.
Entry Regular entries can be made until 1 June 2009.
Novikov of Russia. If he could hold it together Hubmann had a good chance of running down Gueorgiou. Instead, he dropped 72sec to Gueorgiou on the next short leg and totally blew his chances of a medal of any colour. He got very close to #9 but then turned left towards some rock clusters, circled one, came back, ran around in some more circles, then saw the control through a gap between two large boulders. He recorded 33rd best time for this leg. The time he lost at this one control put him out of medal contention.
More info: www.oringen.se DECEMBER 2008 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER
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