SILVA NATIONAL ORIENTEERING LEAGUE

very small areas and buffalo grass quickly took over the meadows. This restricted running to a series of paths and cuttings but made route choice the key skill in deciding the winners. Yang Ming Park is a popular park on the outer edges of Taipei. The park is steep with intricate gardens containing many rock and water features. Caine Batten, from the Toohey Forest Club and Queensland Cyclones, had a variety of experiences in his second Deaflympics. The Opening Ceremony was enjoyable. It was a huge affair with an outstanding array of highly choreographed performers. What made it even more impressive was that the majority of the performers in the ceremony were deaf and had to rely heavily on visual cues to execute their performance. Caine was at a loss for words to describe how the Opening Ceremony felt. Caine’s best result was 20th place in the Middle Distance. He found the Orienteering challenging, especially the buffalo grass. There is nothing to compare it to in Australia. It was obvious that the orienteers who were competing enjoyed the competition and the camaraderie offered by the event. Many had competed against one another before at previous Deaflympics. The Deaflympics Orienteering competition is part of a series of major Orienteering events held for deaf orienteers. Caine said he found it hard to describe the terrain at Cingtiangang. He said the grass was very high. “It was very hard to run through the dark green. Due to the large area of green, I had to crawl for 45min to get out. Afterwards, I jumped down the cliff through the dark green, realising that I was in the wrong place to cross the high grass. I still enjoyed the experience of racing with other countries and particularly against Victor Dinges, who won two golds. He didn’t run the elites races in Russia because he had no financial support. He just came out from local orienteering. Very impressive. I encouraged him to come to Australia and run with us in our competitions. His 5,000m time is 15:30, a very strong runner.”

Caine added: “Being a Deafolympian is very important to deaf and hearing‑impairment people because it means competing at a high standard, and sharing a similar experience with others with a disability while using hand communication as usual. Taiwan´s mayor had contributed over $50 million dollars to Deaflympics events and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies to show us that they treat us like special, elite athletes. Around 3,000 Deaf athletes, and 1,500 volunteers participated.” Caine concluded with: “There next World Deaf Orienteering will be held in Ukraine in 2011. I’m looking forward to competing again, with no mistake (I promise)!” Best wishes to Caine in the pursuit of his goals in Ukraine and perhaps in Athens in 2013 for the next Deaflympics.

2009 SILVA National Orienteering League

Blair Trewin

Anew name appeared on the winners’ list in the 2009 SILVA National Orienteering League. After fifteen years in which the Canberra Cockatoos had dominated, and the Victorian Nuggets had picked up any Senior titles that the Cockatoos didn’t, the NSW Stingers won their first title when they ran away with the Men’s competition in 2009. The Stingers’ win was set up in the first half of the season when, with Julian Dent dominating and enough depth to always get two other decent results on any given day, they were almost untouchable. After the WOC trials it looked as if they could go through the whole season without dropping a point. An injury to Dent, which kept him out of the whole Australian Championships carnival, brought NSW back to the pack, but none of the other teams were able to perform consistently enough to take advantage. They did turn on a good battle for second, ultimately tied between the Southern Arrows and the Cockatoos after the Cockatoos won the Australian Relays. The Nuggets’ Senior Women won for the second time in three years. Led by Kathryn Ewels, enjoying her best season, they had a close battle with the Cockatoos through the first half of the season, but opened up a big lead later in the year as the loss of Allison Jones (expecting her second child) left a hole that the Cockatoos were unable to cover. The Queensland Cyclones finished well to complete the placings. The Cyclones can be expected to advance further in the coming years with the products of their excellent junior team, which dominated the Junior Women’s competition, with three JWOC team members and more depth to back that up; they barely noticed the loss of Laurina Neumann and Rachel Effeney to the senior ranks. The Junior Men’s was the closest of the team competitions. The Nuggets, led by Max Neve, broke away in the final week, but only four points covered the next four teams, with the Cockatoos leaping from fifth to second on the last day of the season (and the Tassie Foresters going in the reverse direction). Much of the individual interest in the 2009 standings was in the two Junior competitions, with the carrot of a trip to Europe (offered by SILVA) for the winner with the largest margin. As it happened they were by far the most interesting competitions only, with both competitions coming down to the last race of the season, and five still in contention for the trip at that stage. In the end it was Max Neve who vaulted over his rivals by winning three of the last four races of the season, while Belinda Lawford, who had had a useful lead through most of the year, went winless in the final week and was eventually caught by Aislinn Prendergast in the League’s first shared individual title, with Bridget Anderson a further six points adrift. Both Senior titles were secured long before the end of the season, with Julian Dent and Hanny Allston comprehensive winners, and Simon Uppill and Kathryn Ewels equally safe in second. There were good battles for third, particularly in the men’s where Rob Preston emerged from a five‑way contest on the last day, while Jasmine Neve’s early season was enough to give her the edge in the Women’s.