ORIENTEERING AUSTRALIA
Executive Matters John Harding – OA Executive Officer
M
Y first task in taking over from Kay Grzadka as Executive Officer was a meeting with Kim Neilson, the Sports Consultant at the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) responsible for Orienteering. I was accompanied by Kay and by Bill Jones, OA President, who had just come from a breakfast for Presidents and CEOs of national sporting organisations in Australia. The good news from Kim was that Orienteering is considered by the ASC to be a very well run sport with Orienteering Australia (OA) having excellent financial management and a very good High Performance program. OA submits a report to the ASC every six months on a range of standard performance indicators including the on-going strategic and operational plans. Longer term plans are under a bit of a cloud at present, not just for OA but for all sports receiving funding assistance from the ASC, as a government review of funding of sport will not be completed until the end of the year and the results not known until later. Kim, however, did give us an overview of a number of special ASC programs such as the Active After Schools Communities (AASC) Program where other sports become service providers and this income helps fund development officer positions. She is intending to attend the Australian Championships carnival in Victoria so say “hello” if you meet her at an event.
The Trewin Report Blair Trewin reports
2009 WOC trials/ACT Championships
T
he 2009 ACT Championships weekend in mid-May, which doubled as the World Championships (WOC) team trials, saw results which had a similar look to many earlier races this season. Hanny Allston swept the three races by increasingly large margins, whilst Julian Dent and Simon Uppill continued their dominance of the men’s events. As they had in eight of the previous nine SILVA National Orienteering League rounds, Dent and Uppill filled the first two places in all three events, but this time not in the same order. Uppill ended Dent’s winning streak at nine with a win in the Sprint, and then took the overall honours for the weekend by winning the Long Distance event after Dent lost seven minutes on a major parallel error. In between, Dent took out the Middle Distance event. None of the younger competitors produced a performance which might have made the WOC team selectors think they were worth taking a chance on. The other significant result was the comeback of Dave Shepherd after eight months out with an ankle injury, with third places in the two shorter events. Allston was never seriously challenged in any of the three events, and extended her margin to ten minutes in the Long 44 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2009
Much is happening at the International Orienteering Federation (IOF) level and a steady stream of IOF email bulletins arrive at the OA office. At its April meeting progress was reported from many working groups. Perhaps the report of greatest interest was a Vision and Objectives statement for Mountain Bike Orienteering, and agreement to produce similar documents for the other Orienteering disciplines. New IOF Anti-Doping Rules were to come into effect on 1 June 2009. An IOF working group is looking into adventure sports which have an orienteering component to see what the definition and rules are, and to what extent IOF member federations are engaged in or administering adventure sports at a national level, and what possibilities exist for cooperation between IOF member federations and other stakeholders. Australia is well represented on the IOF Council, through IOF Vice President Hugh Cameron, and on IOF Committees. Mike Dowling, a member of the 8-member IOF Foot Orienteering Commission, was travelling to Europe in July not just to attend Commission meetings but also to represent Australia at the Presidents’ Conference and the Out of Europe Federations meeting. Blake Gordon is a member of the 10-member MTB Commission.
Distance race. The interest was in those competing for places behind. Shannon Jones was the most impressive of these, taking second in the Sprint and Long Distance events, which was enough to secure her a place in the team. Kathryn Ewels was also consistent with a second and two thirds. The highlight of the junior classes was the tussle between Bridget Anderson and Belinda Lawford, who were not separated by more than 12 seconds in any of the three races. Each won one of the three races, but they were pushed down to second and third due to an impressive run by Aislinn Prendergast in the Long Distance event. The junior men spread the honours around with Max Neve, Josh Blatchford and Lachlan Dow each winning a race. In the teams competition, the NSW Stingers men’s team continued their unbeaten run, although they had their closest challenge yet in the Sprint, where the Victorian Nuggets were eight seconds behind and only 42 seconds separated the first four teams. The Nuggets women’s team extended their lead over the Canberra Cockatoos to 11 points, despite losing some ground when Jasmine Neve injured an ankle in the Long Distance race. The Queensland Cyclones continue to dominate the junior women, and are two points behind the Tassie Foresters in the close junior men’s event.
