MOUNTAIN BIKE ORIENTEERING
AUSTRALIAN MTBO CHAMPIONSHIPS Mild conditions one day, torrential rain and hail the next. The weather gods really turned it on for competitors in the AUS Championships held near Mt Gambier, South Australia, over the June long weekend. Kay Haarsma takes up the narrative:
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LTHOUGH the event centre was based in Mt Gambier, two of the races were held just over the border in Victoria. This venue had the advantage of new areas never before ridden on, which made for fantastic racing. OASA is to be congratulated in taking the risk of mapping these areas and running the event some 450 kilometres from its main orienteering population in Adelaide. The Championships had a great atmosphere with most people accommodated at the event centre, the Comfort Inn – Silver Birch motel in Mt Gambier. The Sunday evening social evening at the motel was a real highlight - 130 people enjoyed a three course dinner while warmed by a roaring fire, entertained by a photo slide show, and rewarded with their Sprint and Long Distance event prizes. Three different areas, most people staying in the one motel, two days of riding without rain - what more could one ask in the middle of winter? Add 30 New Zealanders to the mix and it was probably the best MTBO AUS Championships ever. The Kiwis were there for the AUS v NZ Challenge in conjunction with the Championship events. The Sprint event was held in the small seaside town of Nelson, with a surprising complexity of small tracks in and around the town’s caravan park, and along the banks of the Glenelg River. Being cheered on by the children resident in the park was an unexpected mid-race experience. Sunday saw us assembled for the Long Distance event at Donovan’s Landing, a small village on the Glenelg River. The large “Caroline Forest” map was gently undulating pine forest highlighted by a section of rideable grassy clearings where there were a number of controls. Near the finish there was a ride option for most through a bumpy farm paddock pitted with wombat holes. Mt Gambier in June was always likely to be cold and wet ..... After two days of mild conditions we well and truly got hammered by the weather gods on the Monday when the Middle Distance event was staged at Mt Richmond, 75km east of Mt Gambier in Victoria. Torrential rain and hailstones doused most riders’ warmup activities and left a white blanket in some parts of the forest. Steep coastal sand hills and very sandy forest tracks churned up by trail bikes added to the degree of difficulty and made for some 34 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2009
times longer than intended. However the views over the Southern Ocean in between rain storms were magnificent! The competition was fierce in the elite classes and most veteran classes. Kiwi pocket rocket Marquita Gelderman, (4th at the World Championships in 2008) stamped her authority from Day 1’s elite Sprint race with a huge 5min win over Thor Egerton and Melanie Simpson. Thor has recently moved from Brisbane to the colder climes of Melbourne. Melanie is concentrating on her internship as a doctor this year, so it was good to see her out and about. In the Long Distance the Aussies got a bit closer to Marquita (106mins) - just a 3min margin with Thor holding off Carolyn Jackson by a mere 4 seconds for 2nd place. The sandy conditions of the Middle Distance obviously suited Marquita (72mins) because she took a 7minute win over Carolyn and Melanie, just 14secs apart. Heath Jamieson, a 16 year-old from Gisborne (VIC) was often seen in a close huddle with Marquita after events quizzing exactly where she went. The M20 class he was riding and the elite women had the same courses so Heath was eager to learn what different route choices Marquita had taken or whether it was just quicker decision making. He was thrilled to claim a 29sec “victory” on the Long Distance course but had lessons to learn from her on the other days. This sharing of skills and methodology between competitors is what makes our sport so unique. Queensland’s Chris Firman, also just 16 years old, must have shivered in the cold, but he chased Heath home each day, especially in the Middle Distance, where he was just 4mins adrift. Ben Davis, a local lad doing his first MTBO events, was thrilled to finish 3rd in the Middle and Long Distance and receive his glassware prizes. The elite men’s class had 15 competitors but it was the foursome of Alex Randall, Paul Darvodelsky, Adrian Jackson and NZ’s Stu Lynch who shared the prizes and took most of the International Ranking points. Alex won the Sprint, 30secs ahead of Stu and a similar margin to Paul in 3rd. Adrian (AJ) had to settle for 4th after a fall resulting in a broken chain. Fuelled by that disappointment AJ obliterated the field in the Long Distance with a 13mins win over Paul, with Alex 19secs back in 3rd and
