Southern Cross Series Bruce Arthur Southern Cross Series Director
A triumphant Vic Country team
W
HILE the SILVA National Orienteering League continues to go from strength to strength, the level of elite competition at State level in Victoria has been only modest in recent years. Although many top class orienteers reside in Victoria, it was rare for more than five or six orienteers to compete in the State Series competitions. With minimal competition, and long, lonely courses, the level of enjoyment was often not enough to encourage top orienteers to attend regularly. Surely, with so many elite orienteers, top coaches, great maps and technical terrain, a better product could be presented for bush orienteering at the State level. So in 2009, the Southern Cross Series was created. The objective of the Southern Cross Series is to provide high performance orienteers with regular opportunities for competition within Victoria, and to prepare orienteers for the SILVA National Orienteering League.
A series of twelve races was created, utilizing mostly existing scheduled events for a team-based competition between Victoria Metro, Victoria Country and the Interstate Raiders. The Interstate Raiders team is open to anyone who represents a State other than Victoria, but given the large number of elite orienteers that have relocated to Victoria from interstate, the strength of each of the three teams is actually very even. Usually Orienteering is an individual sport, but one of the key components of this Series is the team aspect. Each team has a captain who nominates seven runners in their team before the race across open men, open women, junior men and junior women classes, forming seven match races. The winning team of each race is determined by awarding points; 3, 2 and 1, according to the placings in each of the seven match races. Thus the competition between the 7th seeded runner in each team is just as important as the top seeds. Innovative formats and courses are encouraged. SportIdent is used in all races which allows mass start and head-to-head
Some of the Vic Metro runners: Jasmine Neve, Bruce Arthur, Aislinn Prendergast, Matt Schepisi 22 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2009
