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.
The Australian Orienteer proved an interesting read for me -- it’s not a sport that has ever come across my radar before(!), not sure if it is practised in South Africa? It must be though. It looks very challenging. I was also fascinated to see how many older people can still achieve so highly in the sport. I thought you did an excellent job of putting together a well-rounded magazine, with the psychology, nutrition, etc, angles and I enjoyed reading the piece on how the mag is financed. Well done. Lindy Hughson, Editor – PKN Packaging News Having perused Sept 2008 edition I’m minded to congratulate you on an excellent production. For years I’ve edited newsletters for church groups, music ones, (Nillumbik Emus) and so forth --- decades ---- but yours is on another level altogether. Peter Cusworth must be pretty good too. I’ve never seen any other sporting magazines so mightn’t have a basis of comparison but they’d be hard pressed to beat The Australian Orienteer.
How do they navigate? I am a relative newcomer to the sport and someone who mainly does the Sydney Summer Series and Stingers Sprints. Work and other weekend sporting commitments prevent me from doing more ‘true’ bush events. To be able to know how to navigate better without a compass - and from the comfort of the lounge chair - I would find it very interesting if you published a bush map that covers a smallish distance (say 3-5 km) and a competitor’s recollection of their race from checkpoint to checkpoint; eg “From the start I headed south past the big boulder, then went a little left on the same contour for about 50m, then right around the thick bush section for 20m and found the punch on the watercourse; etc, etc” Something like that would help amateurs like me understand the thought processes of the elites when it comes to navigating. I look at some of the map sections published in the magazine and sometimes wonder how the competitors even find their way home before dark ! Ian Jessup (NSW) (Editor – good point, and there will be more articles on navigation technique in the future. Meantime, have a look at AO-June 2005 for a very informative description by France’s Thierry Gueorgiou on how he navigated to a World Championship win in 2004; also AO-March 2007 for an account of the Night-O event in Hong Kong.)
Bill Johnson (Nillumbik Emus, Victoria).
Please include Results I enjoyed reading the September AO with articles about the Australians at the high profile events - World Masters, JWOC and WOC. With considerable OA funding supporting the JWOC & WOC teams and the High Performance area in general I was frustrated that in the JWOC article there were few actual results mentioned. It was nice to read the four-page story with nice photos – but for some reason finding their actual placing/time was very difficult and in most cases not reported at all (and there was no mention of who was coach of the team). In future, could a small table be included at the end that shows 1st (or 1st – 3rd) and then all Australian results for the qualification races and finals so that we, the readers, can see their results. Or perhaps within their photo list their place and time for each event they entered, then just a table for the relays. People may say ‘check the internet’ but with our national magazine reporting on our national team it should be there succinctly. Our WOC and JWOC teams are the cream of our representative teams and so the managers should be reporting a summary of the actual results (not just the feel good story, which was sort of a nice read) for all orienteers to see in a permanent form (ie the national magazine). Having to start up the computer, get internet access, and then search for what one is after is never as easy as grabbing that last magazine. Already some internet result pages on past World Events have become ‘sorry this page is unavailable’ - but we can always keep the copy of our magazine! Christine Marshall (Tasmania)
VICTORINOX AWARD The Victorinox Award goes to Ian Jessup (NSW) for his letter asking for more articles describing route choice decisions in future magazines. (Look at pages 32 & 33 in this edition, Ian). Ian will receive a Victorinox Voyager with 20 tools and features including a watch/alarm/timer; retail value $109.95. DECEMBER 2008 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 31
