OCEANIA ORIENTEERING CHAMPS, NZ

Simon Uppill dominated at the Oceania Championships. Photo: Rob Preston

The Trewin Report

Blair Trewin takes us to the South Island of New Zealand for the 2009 Oceania Championships held in early January.

Uppill dominates again but NZ takes the trophies

New Zealand continued the long run of home victories in the Australia-New Zealand Challenge when the Oceania Championships were contested in the South Island in January. No visiting nation has won either the Individual or Relay challenge since 1994. Australia had high hopes that they might break this run in 2009, particularly as the smaller number of classes gave them a better chance to field competitive teams, but New Zealand took out both events comfortably, winning the Relay 9-5 and the Individual 10-4. Australia did, however, provide the individual star of the competition. Simon Uppill was one second away from a clean sweep of the three individual titles. He was a comprehensive winner in the Long Distance, six minutes clear of the field. It was a much closer affair in the Middle Distance, where he had only three seconds in hand over Finn Miika Hernelahti, and in the Sprint he was squeezed out by Jamie Stewart by a single second. It was a reasonable week for the Australian men in general, especially in the Long Distance where Eric Morris was third, Ben Rattray was fourth and the leading New Zealander (Brent Edwards) was 13 minutes down on Uppill, but it was not enough to lift Australia to victory in the elite Test Match, as the women (up against a very strong New Zealand team) were unable to place better than eighth in any of the three races. Finland’s Mari Vaananen won the Middle and Long Distance races, while Lizzie Ingham took out the Sprint and was second in the other two events. Australia struggled in many of the other classes. One where they excelled was M16, where they won both the Individual and Relay challenges, and Kurt Neumann and Oscar McNulty took the Long Distance and Sprint titles respectively. Australia also won both Individual and Relay events in W20 and W40, although both teams benefited from New Zealand relay disqualifications (a fate which also befell our M21 Relay team, which crossed the line first), and the best Australian individual performer in either class was someone who was not in the team – Sibylle Boos (Uringa, NSW), who took both the Long and Middle Distance titles in W40. The other Australian relay wins came in M60 and W70. The Relay was an unusually technical one, held on a complex sand dune area north of Christchurch, with few big features, which brought many competitors unstuck. Many of the classes saw wild fluctuations from leg to leg, but the best race of the day was in M40, where two strong teams clashed. The teams were within seconds of each other at every changeover but Mark Lawson was a bit too fast for Jim Russell in the final sprint. The Sprint, at Lincoln University near Christchurch, was the first major event of an interestingly varied week. It was Australia’s best event of the week with eleven A class wins, nearly half of which were accounted for by two families. In addition to Oscar McNulty’s victory in M16, his brother Henry won M14, and the Burridges took three of the youngest junior classes through Isabella (W10), Heather (W12) and Nicholas (M10). Eoin Rothery won M50, one of two titles for the week (he also won the Middle Distance), and other Australian wins went to Tony Mount (M75), Belinda Lawford (W20), Su Yan Tay (W45), Jacquie Rand (W55) and Maureen Ogilvie (W75). The Long Distance was a physically demanding race at Craigieburn in the foothills of the Southern Alps – the courses may have gone only a third of the way up the mountain but they were still tough, and single-digit kilometre rates were few and far between (something much more common in New Zealand than Australia). This was a day when many Australians did it tough. Four juniors won, with Heather and Isabella Burridge backing up after the Sprint, and Max Neumann taking out M14 alongside Kurt’s win in M16, but Sibylle Boos in W40 was the only veteran to take out a Challenge class. There were victories for Alex Tarr in M65, Scott Simson in M35 and trans-Tasman transplant Ted van Geldermalsen in M55. Completely different terrain was found again for the Middle Distance – an open limestone area near Oamaru. For some it was the completion of a good week (Heather Burridge was the only Australian to make it three out of three, and as noted earlier there were second titles for Uppill, Boos and Rothery, as well as Henry McNulty). For others the change of terrain was to their liking as they scored their first success for the week. The senior women had a particularly good day, with Sue Hancock (W45), Lynn Dabbs (W55), Sue Mount (W70) and Sue Healy (W75) all in front of their classes. On the other hand, the New Zealand juniors mostly bettered their Australian rivals here, although Joshua Neumann won in M18. The week finished in the intricate gold-mining terrain of Naseby. For the Schools team this was one of the key parts of the week, as the Individual and Relay Test Matches took place there. New Zealand have won both previous matches and were heavily favoured to win in 2009 as well. It was a closer-run thing than many expected, but in the end a 3-1 individual win was enough for the New Zealanders after the four relay classes were split. As was expected from the results earlier in the week, the junior boys were dominant and swept the individual placings, with Kurt Neumann four minutes ahead of Ian Lawford and Oliver Poland. Krystal Neumann, who had battled in races earlier in the week, came good when it mattered, seven seconds ahead of Belinda Lawford and 27 ahead of Kate Morrison, but Australia was unable to get a third runner in time to lift them to a win in that class. And they were well back in the two others, although Lachlan Dow was second in the senior boys’. In the Relays both junior teams won, the boys as expected, the girls unexpectedly so dominant that they lapped their rivals, but neither senior team was really in the hunt. For the other classes Naseby was not a championship race. It did, however, provide a platform for Simon Uppill to demonstrate his technical skills again with probably his best run of the week, seven minutes ahead of the field in a 48-minute race; on the same day the Australian elite women had their best day of the week as Vanessa Round and Briohny Davey filled the minor placings. Ben Rattray took advantage of Uppill’s departure before the final mass-start race to score a win there, with Ryan Smyth and Bryan Keely also in the top four. While many of the travelling Australians did not have the results they hoped for, most thoroughly enjoyed the competition, with almost every area very different, and most of them interesting. There were also signs that Oceania is becoming more than just Australia and New Zealand, with a noticeable New Caledonia presence, including a first title when Laurent Devaud won the M35 Middle Distance event.