The Australian Orienteer - June 2013

JUNE 2013

2012 Athlete of the Year - Julian Dent RRP $8.50 inc GST

SILVA National Orienteering League Event Program 2010

Round 1:

South Australia

Event 1a:

Saturday March 9th, 2013

Sprint Qualifier

Event 1b:

Saturday March 9th, 2013

Sprint Final

Event 2:

Sunday March 10th, 2013

Mass Start (multi-loop)

Round 2:

Australian 3 Day Orienteering Championships, Victoria

Event 3:

Friday March 29th, 2013

Prologue (Sprint)

Event 4:

Saturday March 30th, 2013

Middle

Event 5:

Sunday March 31st, 2013

Long

Event 6:

Monday April 1st, 2013

Reverse Chasing Start

Round 3:

World Championships Selection Trials, ACT

Event 7:

Saturday May 4th, 2013

Sprint

Event 8:

Saturday May 4th, 2013

Middle

Event 9:

Sunday May 5th, 2013

Long

Round 4:

Australian Championships Carnival, ACT

Event 10:

Saturday September 28th, 2013

Sprint

Event 11:

Sunday September 29th, 2013

Long

Event 12:

Saturday October 5th, 2013

Individual Final, Long

Event 13:

Sunday October 6th, 2013

Team Final, Relay

All race details can be found at www.orienteering.asn.au www.silva.se

SILVA is represented in Australia by FISKARS BRANDS. australia@fiskarsbrands.com

ORIENTEERING AUSTRALIA

The President’s Page Blair Trewin

I

write this not too long after the end of the first of our two major national carnivals of the year, the Australian 3-Days in Bendigo. It is always good to have such a large part of the Australian orienteering community brought together, and Victoria turned on a good event for everyone to enjoy – taking advantage of the large amount of good terrain close to Bendigo to stage an event with less travelling than is sometimes the case at our national events.

Organising a major national carnival is always a significant challenge and, like most, this one had its fraught moments (although it is a tribute to the team that very few of these fraught moments were visible to the competitors). We are certainly aware that quite a few States are feeling stretched by the program of national events which they are expected to host. Ultimately, the best solution to this is to grow the sport so there are more people to do the work and the same people don’t end up doing the job every time, but while we’re waiting for that to happen we will need to think about what can be done to make things easier.

One thing which will make things easier in the longer term, but is going through the inevitable bedding-in process that any piece of new technology will go through, is the Eventor event management system. Easter organisers were the guinea pigs for this. I know that some of you have had frustrations learning to use the system, and the first organisers to use it had a learning curve as well, but once it is established it will allow us to integrate much more seamlessly with event software systems (saving event secretaries a lot of work). It’s already allowing us to do things like send out e-mail bulletins to all event entrants without having to maintain a separate mailing list. (Also on the technology side, the new Orienteering Australia website is not too far away).

As will have been apparent to anyone who has seen the back pages (and, quite often, the front pages) of the papers over the last few months, there have been some challenging issues in Australian sport of late. While we haven’t been caught up in any of the scandal surrounding the football codes, we have to keep up with what the rest of the sporting world is doing in many of these areas, particularly in the anti-doping area.

Two other areas where we are being influenced by developments on the wider sporting scene have been the restructuring of government high-performance support, and sports governance. At the time of writing we are still waiting to hear what the future of our high performance support is now that responsibility for it has moved from the Australian Sports Commission (from which we currently get $86,000 a year) to the Australian Institute of Sport. Regardless of the outcome, we will be proceeding with restructuring our high performance and talent pathways, although this work is going more slowly than I would have hoped.

Sports governance is also an area where government is pressing for reform; their focus is, so far, on the largest sports, and while some of the structures being recommended for those sports are not practical for an organisation of our size, there are still aspects of the way we do things which will need to be reviewed.

We welcome Jenny Casanova to the Orienteering Australia Board as the new Director (Technical). Jenny takes the step up after being a capable chair of the Technical Committee for several years (in addition to filling a wide variety of roles at the State level in South Australia, and being chair of the senior selection panel). She replaces Robin Uppill, who is stepping down after seven years of excellent service on the Board. Grant Bluett has also stood down as Director (High Performance); by the time you read this we will, I hope, have appointed a replacement.

The international season is now fast approaching (especially the World Championships in Finland, earlier than usual this year). We are hoping for the best this year, which will be an important year, not only in its own right but also because results from 2013 will help determine how many people we can run in future years under the post-2014 structure without qualification races.

The juniors also give us something to look forward to; in particular the junior women show signs of starting to develop some depth after a few lean years. For those of you who are going overseas, good luck; for those who are not, I’ll see many of you in Canberra in September.

Photo: Karen Blatchford JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 3

Winning PartnershiP

The Australian Sports Commission proudly supports Orienteering Australia The Australian Sports Commission is the Australian Government agency that develops, manages and invests in sport at all levels in Australia.

Orienteering Australia has worked closely with the Australian Sports Commission to develop orienteering from community participation to high-level performance.

AUSTRALIAN SPORTS COMMISSION 4 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

Orienteering Australia is one of many national sporting organisations that has formed a winning partnership with the Australian Sports Commission to develop its sport in Australia.

www.ausport.gov.au

w w w. o r i e n t e e r i n g . a s n . a u Orienteering Australia PO Box 284 Mitchell BC 2911 President: Blair Trewin Director High Performance: to be advised Director Finance: Bruce Bowen Director Technical: Jenny Casanova Director Special Projects: Robert Spry Director Communications: Craig Feuerherdt Director International IOF Council: Mike Dowling Executive Officer: John Harding High Performance Manager: Kay Haarsma High Performance Operations Manager: Nick Dent Badge Applications: John Oliver

orienteering@netspeed.com.au w: 02 6162 1200 oa_president@netspeed.com.au h: 03 9455 3516 oa_highperformance@netspeed.com.au oa_finance@netspeed.com.au h: 02 6288 8501 oa_technical@netspeed.com.au m: 0427 605 167 rbspry@gmail.com craigfeuerherdt@gmail.com 0438 050 074 oa_international@netspeed.com.au orienteering@netspeed.com.au 02 6162 1200 m: 0427 107 033 kayhaarsma@hotmail.com 08 8337 0522 nickdent7@gmail.com 02 4384 3627 68 Amaroo Street, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2650

STATE ASSOCIATIONS Orienteering Queensland Inc: PO Box 114 Spring Hill QLD 4004. Admin Officer: Melissa Bowman admin@oq.asn.au ONSW: PO Box 3295, North Strathfield NSW 2137. Secretary: Anthony Darr, Ph. (02) 8116 9848 admin@onsw.asn.au Orienteering ACT: PO Box 402, Jamison Centre ACT 2614. Office: Ph. (02) 6162 3422 orienteering.act@webone.com.au Victorian OA: PO Box 1010 Templestowe 3106. Secretary: Don Fell, voa@netspace.net.au OA South Aust: State Association House, 105 King William St Kent Town SA 5067. Sec: Ken Thompson 08 8351 4757 secretary@sa.orienteering.asn.au OA Western Australia: PO Box 234 Subiaco WA 6094. Secretary: Ken Post Ph. (08) 9246 2552 kpost1@bigpond.com Orienteering Tasmania Inc.: PO Box 339, Sandy Bay, TAS 7005. Secretary: David Marshall, Ph. (03) 6260 4300 secretary@tasorienteering.asn.au Top End Orienteers (Northern Territory): PO Box 39152 Winnellie NT 0821. Secretary: Zoe Radford topendorienteersNT@gmail.com

NEXT ISSUE DEADLINE

July 12. Time-sensitive: July 19

ISSN 0818-6510 Issue 2/13 (no. 170) JUNE 2013

The national magazine of Orienteering Australia Inc. ABN 77 406 995 497 Published four times a year: First day of March, June, September, December. Print Post Approved PP 236080/00011 Editor: Michael Hubbert, P.O. Box 165, Warrandyte, Victoria 3113 mikehubbert@ozemail.com.au Phone (03) 9844 4878 Magazine Design & Assembly: Peter Cusworth, Ph. 0409 797 023 pcusworth@bigpond.com Magazine Treasurer: Bruce Bowen Printer: Ferntree Print Centre, 1154 Burwood Hwy Upper Ferntree Gully.

Contribution deadline: July 12; Time-sensitive - July 19.

Deadline dates for contributions are the latest we can accept copy.

Publication is normally planned for the 1st of March, June, September & December. Copies are dispatched in bulk to State associations in the week prior to that date.

Regular Contributors: Competition - Blair Trewin; High Performance - Kay Haarsma; MTBO - Blake Gordon; Official News - John Harding; Nutrition Gillian Woodward; Training - Steve Bird; Coaching – Hanny Allston.

Contributions are welcome, either directly or via State editorial contacts.

Prior consultation is suggested before preparing major contributions.

Guidelines for Contributors are available from the editor or from state contacts.

State Editorial Contacts Qld. – Liz Bourne 07 4683 6374 (h) batmaps.liz@gmail.com NSW – tba ACT – Philip Purcell philippurc@hotmail.com SA – Erica Diment: diment@adam.com.au ; tel (ah) 8379 2914 Vic, WA and Tas – vacant Subscriptions: State Association members via State Associations. Contact relevant Association Secretary for details. Other subscribers: Write to The Australian Orienteer, PO‑Box 165, Warrandyte, Vic. 3113. Within Australia: $40 pa. Overseas: Asia/Pacific (inc. NZ) $A49, Rest of World $A58 pa.

Delivery is airmail, there is no seamail option. Please send payment in Australian dollars by bank draft or international postal order, or pay direct

by Visa or Mastercard. Quote full card number and expiry date.

Subscription renewals (direct subscriptions only). The number in the top right-hand corner of the address label indicates the final issue in your current subscription.

Opinions expressed in The Australian Orienteer are not necessarily those of Orienteering Australia.

CONTENTS T H E P R E S I D E N T ’ S P A G E.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 S P O T T H E D I F F E R E N C E .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 EDITORIAL ............................................ 7 EASTER CARNIVAL................................... 8 N AT I O N A L O L E A G U E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 J W O C P R E V I E W .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 4 AT H L E T E PAT H W A Y D E V E L O P M E N T . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 8 WOC PREVIEW...................................... 20 INTERVIEW – Emily Kemp........................ 22 SPRINT MAPS....................................... 26 B L U E S PA R K S C A M P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 0 C O M M I T I N G T O O R I E N T E E R I N G .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3 M E L B O U R N E S T R E E T- O C H A M P S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5 M I T C H E L L PA R K R O U T E C H O I C E S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 6 O - S P Y.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 6 S A LO N E N FA R E W E L L . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 8 MTBO................................................. 40 L E T T E R S .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4 TOP EVENTS......................................... 47 Cover photo: Julian Dent at the 2013 World Cup Sprint in New Zealand. Photo: John Harding.

JUNE JUNE2013 2013THE THEAUSTRALIAN AUSTRALIANORIENTEER ORIENTEER 5

SPOT the DIFFERENCE

This map of Deakin University has been used often for a variety of events – Sprint, Adventure Racing and Park & Street O. In the buildings complex the map is multi-level and participants need to have an acute awareness of their surroundings to navigate successfully.

Here, in two otherwise identical map sections, we have created 25 differences.

CAN YOU FIND ALL 25 ???

6 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

EDITORIAL

Choose your Covers I

’ve heard there’s been distant rumblings from a few individuals about some recent magazine cover photos and how they portray our sport.

We rarely have world champions to feature so I look for others to acknowledge and encourage. Our talented Juniors are the future of our sport and I try to give them every encouragement by featuring them both on the cover and inside the magazine.

Of course, seniors who are successful in major events such as WMOC and Oceania also deserve recognition. I try to make Orienteering look attractive so, for the covers, I rarely choose photos showing sweating, mud-splattered & dishevelled competitors charging through the undergrowth.

#7 Veivalg 6-2012 cover

On this page you will see a selection of recent magazine covers from around the world, including The Australian Orienteer. They demonstrate a variety of approaches to choosing a cover photo.

Here is your chance to have your say in open forum by telling the Editor (me) which covers you like and which you don’t.

Please email me (mikehubbert@ozemail.com.au) with your comments and your top-3 choices. Your responses will be summarised in the next edition.

#4 Swiss O 3-2013 cover

Michael Hubbert (Managing Editor) #8 AO Sept 2012 cover

#5 Orientierung 4-2012 cover

#2 CompassSport 6-2012 cover

#9 AO Dec 2012 cover

#1 Skogssport 1-2013 cover

#6 Suunnistaja 8-2012 cover

#3 Orientering 1-2013 cover

#10 AO March 2013 cover JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 7

2013 EASTER CARNIVAL

Trewin Report

the

Australian 3-Days, Bendigo Bryan Keely.

Bendigo at Easter 2013 was a big weekend for Australian-based internationals. It was the event where Lizzie Ingham (NZ) showed an Australian audience the ability which has given her four top-20 results at World Championships level in the last two years. Matt Crane (GB) had to work harder for his win but emerged on top after four well-fought days.

Photo: Karen Blatchford

Grace Crane.

Photo: Karen Blatchford

Matt Crane.

Photo: Tony Hill

A

lot of the pre-event interest amongst the women focused on the return of Hanny Allston, making her first appearance in a major national event for four years, and the Sprint at La Trobe University was eagerly awaited to see how close she was to her World Championship form. Instead, it was the day Ingham made her initial statement with a convincing win, a late mistake by Allston blowing the margin out to a big-by-Sprint-standards 90 seconds.

From there it was smooth sailing for the New Zealander as she made a clean sweep of the four days and was never really challenged on any of them. She was particularly imposing on the Long Distance day on the steep granite of Mount Alexander, putting six minutes between herself and the field after winning the last nine splits. The close race was for second, where Allston was dicing with her fellow Tasmanian, Grace Crane. It was Crane who emerged on top in the end, with the three minutes she gained at Mount Alexander making the difference.

Matt Crane went into the weekend as favourite and did that status no harm with a narrow Sprint win over Simon Uppill and Bryan Keely, but the Saturday race turned things upside down. A patchy run in the complex mining terrain leaving him twelfth on the day and with some work to do. Not for the first time, though, a margin which seems substantial after two short races becomes relatively modest in a long race. Uppill was the only one to get within eight minutes of him at Mount Alexander, which left the pair eight seconds apart going into the final day.

8 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

The last day, on very fast terrain on the southern fringe of Bendigo, was never likely to produce a decision by knockout at this level, but it did produce one on points, as Crane edged out to a half-minute lead by the end of the long third leg, and stayed there for the remainder of the race to score by 55 seconds.

Lachlan Dow was third after four consistent runs, despite Bryan Keely’s last-day win. Keely was one of two Bendigo locals to take the day points on Bendigo terrain, after Chris Naunton (who set the Sprint and missed the Long Distance day through injury) won on Saturday.

For the second year in a row, the junior men’s was convincingly won by Oliver Poland, who took out three of the four days.

A potential overall rival was removed from the picture when Brodie Nankervis mispunched in the Sprint. Ian Lawford was up there with Poland after two days, following a Saturday win, but any doubt was removed by a six-minute margin on the slopes of Mount Alexander. Matt Doyle, without ever challenging the leading pair, put together four good days and completed the placings. As always at Easter, the stakes were also high behind that as Nankervis, Andrew Barnett, Oscar McNulty and Todd Neve competed to not be the one left without a JWOC seat when the music stopped.

After a few lean years some encouraging depth is starting to emerge amongst the junior women, and that was reflected in Easter’s closest race, a duel between two Queensland junior products in Heather Muir and Jacqui Doyle (who runs for the

Hanny Allston.

Photo: Karen Blatchford

Lizzie Ingham.

Photo: Karen Blatchford

Canberra Cockatoos these days). They were never far apart on any of the four days, sharing them two-all, and with three controls to go on the last day they were dead level, but Muir had just enough speed over the closing stretch to win by seven seconds. Lanita Steer, enjoying a breakthrough season, was also in the mix for two days after a win on Saturday before falling away, while consistency saw Swedish visitor Amanda Holmgren through to third.

That depth was further illustrated further down the age spectrum.

W16 has a bit of a reputation as an age group to expect the unexpected at Easter, and 2013 was no exception in a contest so even that first and fifth swapped places on the final day. Hannah Goddard went into Monday in fifth place. She was in the mix by halfway after overnight leaders Heather Burridge, Georgia Jones and Asha Steer all lost time on the first half of the course. By the closing controls it was a race in two between Goddard and Steer; the Victorian kept her nose in front almost to the end but was overhauled in the last three controls as Goddard won by eight seconds.

The junior women did their best to claim a monopoly on close finishes and last-day comebacks – outside the youngest age groups only one other A class was decided by less than a minute, and only one saw someone come from behind after two days to win. It will come as no great surprise that the other nail-biting finish was in M65, a group which has always been large and competitive as its members have got older together. Leigh Privett has only been an intermittent presence at foot national events in

recent years, but he showed that he still has it over the first two days. He then had to withstand a great last-day run from Britain’s Peter Gorvett, who won half the splits and sliced five minutes off the lead, but that still left him twelve seconds short. Hugh Moore was also right in the hunt, a minute back in third.

The comeback was one age group higher, in M70, where Tim Dent turned a three-minute deficit into a three-minute lead in a duel with Ron Junghans. W45 also promised an epic last day when the top five went to Crusoe only separated by four minutes, but it became a slight anticlimax as Nicola Dalheim eased clear to a reasonably comfortable win.

Apart from Lizzie Ingham, five others (leaving aside singlefinisher classes) in A classes did the clean sweep of all three days.

Four of those were former national representatives. Geoff Lawford (M55) is no stranger to such lists, and he was joined by Warren Key (M50) and, slightly less predictably, Christine Marshall (W50) and Clare Hawthorne (W40). The fifth was Patrick Jaffe, who reinforced his rising-star status by dominating the M16 field, a particularly impressive result as he is still at the younger end of the age group.

Former WOC representatives were at the centre of a fine race in W55. Carolyn Jackson was 39 seconds up on Liz Abbott after the opening day, but it was Abbott who had the edge on each of the last two days to emerge two minutes ahead. Jenny Bourne, who missed the first day through organising, was also right in the mix on the two days she ran. A stronger-than-usual M40 field didn’t JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 9

2013 EASTER CARNIVAL

Julie Flynn.

Carl Dalheim.

Photo: Tony Hill

Photo: Tony Hill

Heather Muir.

Photo: Karen Blatchford

Bruce Arthur.

Photo: Karen Blatchford

Amanda Holmgren.

Photo: Tony Hill

feature any former WOC representatives; Andy Hogg, probably the best Australian orienteer never to get a chance at World Championships level, had a narrow lead over Matt Sherlock after two days and then held off Greg Barbour’s Monday surge as Sherlock dropped away.

Lynn Dabbs won W60 overall without winning a day (a distinction shared by Tristan Miller in M12), emerging three minutes clear. The decisive moment came when Carol Brownlie lost 13 minutes on the second control at Mount Alexander, although she recovered enough to edge Lynda Rapkins out of second by five seconds. Paul Hoopmann recovered from a slow start – eighth on the first day – to be in front in M60 by Sunday night and a four-minute winner at the close of proceedings, while Jenny Hawkins (W65), Jean Baldwin (W70) and Pauli Piiroinen (M75) all opened up big leads on the first two days and were never seriously threatened by the small inroads made by others on Monday.

Bendigo 2013 provided plenty of good moments for those who were there – an interesting mix of generally enjoyable terrain, not too much travelling within the weekend, and decent weather most of the time (the last of the serious summer heat having broken on the preceding Wednesday). Nor were the inevitable anxious moments behind the scenes reflected in much that was visible to the competitors. Next year it will be New South Wales, and sandstone.

10 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

The Australian Ultra-Long, 6 April Unlike most recent years, the main Easter carnival did not extend into the following week this year, but there was still a worthwhile attraction the following weekend – the Australian Ultra-Long at Creswick. This is a format which had largely vanished from the Australian scene over the last 15 years, but was revived by Eureka, with a very attractive major prize – a trip to Europe for the best performance – and further substantial sponsorship from Wildfire Sports and Dirty D. Lizzie Ingham continued her exceptional week by taking the major prize, completing the 15km course in a bit under two hours; Kathryn Preston was her nearest challenger in W21E but the New Zealander always looked like finishing on top. That was a short course compared with the men – only five made it to the finish line of a 26km epic, and even winner Lachlan Dow was well beyond three hours. Brodie Nankervis got closest to edging Ingham out of the major prize when he took out M20, while the junior women saw a sprint finish (or as close as you can get to one after such a distance) in which Lanita Steer just shaded Mary Fleming.

Su Yan Tay.

Photo: John Harding

Craig Feuerherdt.

Photo: John Harding

Luca Talbot-Hogg and Mia Kluth on the String course at Mt Alexander.

LETTER

EASTER STRING COURSES

I

recently attended The Gold’n Ponds Australian 3-Days in Bendigo with my two young children. The event itself was fantastic, but I would like to make special mention of the String Course, which for not only my kids but dozens of others, was the highlight of the carnival. The amazing effort put in by Belinda Dale saw the creation of the three-part Bush Babies Adventure string course. Scores of children lined up each day eager to do “their” event.

The course offered more than the usual controls and strings, with a detailed map, characters at each control and an intricate storyline to follow. The electronic timing brought out the competitive side in some of the children, and saw them doing multiple laps of the course each day. It was a great opportunity for the orienteers of the future.

I don’t doubt Belinda’s efforts have inspired parents across Australia to raise the standard of string courses in their region. Thank you Belinda.

Cathy Hogg (Parawanga Orienteers) Makhaya Talbot-Hogg on the String course at Mt Alexander.

JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 11

NATIONAL ORIENTEERING LEAGUE

Victoria takes an early lead in the SILVA National League Grace Crane, Senior Women leader.

Photo: Steve Bird.

Blair Trewin

T

he Victorian Nuggets have taken an early lead in both senior competitions in the SILVA National League. For the women, champions in each of the last four years, their six-point lead over the Canberra Cockatoos at this stage of the season is familiar territory; for the men it is a more novel experience as they aim for their first title since 2007.

The Nuggets men have always had depth but, relative to their rivals, have lacked stars. That has changed in 2013 with three individual race winners.

Victor Mansner, a Finn studying in Geelong this year, was an unexpected winner of the Long Distance race in South Australia, while Bryan Keely and Chris Naunton won days of Easter.

The Canberra Cockatoos are only a point behind – and would be in front but for not getting three finishers at Belair. With all remaining 2013 races on their home ground they are probably still favourites.

Lachlan Dow, Senior Men leader.

Photo: Karen Blatchford

The Cockatoos are also the nearest challenger amongst the women, and will probably get stronger as the year goes on. Their chances depend a lot on whether Lizzie Ingham, who missed the Adelaide rounds, runs all the remaining races; if she does, they will be hard to beat. The Southern Arrows are in third place; the Queensland Cyclones, who went desperately close to their first title last year, have struggled this year, with Laurina Neumann crossing to Victoria and Rachel Effeney, now based in Cairns, missing Easter.

A third Victorian team at the top of the table is their junior women’s outfit. The Queensland Cyclones have had only a marginal presence so far and it looks like their seven-year winning streak is coming to an end, with the Nuggets, the deepest team so far this year, 14 points ahead of the NSW Stingers. After a slow start the junior men of the Canberra Cockatoos got maximum points from all four Easter rounds and now have a four-point lead over Tasmania.

The individual tables are still taking shape. Grace Crane currently leads the senior women after taking maximum points from the Adelaide weekend, although Lizzie Ingham, with four wins from four starts, will be hard to beat once she has a complete score. Lachlan Dow currently leads the senior men after five top-four results from six races; he faces stern challenges from Matt Crane, a winner of three races, and Simon Uppill once they can drop the zero scores from Belair.

Ian Lawford leads the junior men, and Heather Muir the junior women.

Victor Mansner, winner in SA. Photo: Steve Bird.

Heather Muir, Junior Women leader. Photo: Steve Bird.

Ian Lawford, Junior Men leader.

Photo: Steve Bird.

14 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013 12

AUS ULTRA LONG

Eureka Australian Ultra-Long 2013

Brodie Nankervis - finished

T

he cream of Australian orienteering ran head to head in the inaugural Eureka Australian Ultra-Long held at Creswick in early April. The women’s field in particular included 2006 World Champion Hanny Allston making her return to Orienteering and building for an international campaign midyear, and New Zealand world top-10 ranked Lizzie Ingham in scintillating form, having cleaned up at Easter the week before.

The Start.

Photo: Ken Dowling - MapSport

Following a mass start the runners headed straight into gully/spur terrain overlaid in many places with complex gold mining detail, before returning through the assembly area – a disused clay quarry - for the second or third loop of their course. The longer courses were particularly taxing with long legs through broad detail followed by butterfly loops with a string of shorter legs through the complex detail of some of the best mining terrain near Ballarat. Projected winning times were M21E: 2h30m; W21E: 1h50m; M17-20E: 1h50m; and W17-20E: 1h35m. Courses for non-elites were longer than normal, but not ultra-long and with a greater focus on detailed navigation.

On offer to the overall elite winner was a return trip to Europe (plus race entry) – a prize sponsored by Eureka Orienteers to a total value $2500. The runners in the four elite classes (junior and senior men and women) were eligible for the prize, with the overall winner being decided on kilometre rates compared to Nordic elite kilometre rates for the respective classes in Ultra-Long races.

By the end of the first loop Lizzie Ingham had taken the lead in the women’s course and appeared well placed to take out the overall prize, but the Tasmanian junior Brodie Nankervis had other ideas and was similarly building a lead over competitors in M17-20E. With Blair Trewin doing the on-the-fly mental arithmetic, the race commentator Roch Prendergast had the race spectators on edge when Brodie started the last loop, knowing to the second the time Brodie needed to do to take the prize from Lizzie, who had just

Handicap winners.

Aislinn Prendergast approaches the runthrough

Overall placegetters based on comparative-handicapped kilometres rates:

finished. Ultimately he fell short by a few minutes, but took a great victory in the junior men’s class.

During prize-giving $1000 of additional prizes – including a Garmin GPS and customised “Ultra-Long” racing tops - were on offer from race sponsors Dirty.D (personalised Orienteering apparel) and Wildfire Sports (Orienteering/sports equipment and accessories). Eureka Orienteers wishes to thank Dirty.D and Wildfire Sports for their support and hope that the Ultra-Long added variety and challenge to the national calendar and helped our elites build towards international standard. Next year an Aussie should win!

Maps of the courses and routes taken can be found on Routegadget.

Lizzie Ingham.......... (106.98% of Nordic women’s elite base kilometre rate) Brodie Nankervis................... (108.01%) Ian Lawford........................... (114.99%) Lachlan Dow......................... (115.82%) Kathryn Preston.................... (118.02%)

Elite class placegetters: M21E: Lachlan Dow..............................3:08.45 Ian Meyer..................................3:20.53 Max Neve..................................3:34.23 W21E Lizzie Ingham.............................1:58.45 Kathryn Preston.........................2:11.03 Aislinn Prendergast....................2:12.02 M17-20E Brodie Nankervis........................2:02.44 Ian Lawford................................2:10.33 Oliver Poland..............................2:13.24 W17-20E Lanita Steer................................1:57.18 Mary Fleming.............................1:57.28 Heather Muir..............................2:03.17 JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 13

JWOC 2013 PREVIEW

JWOC Czech Republic June 29 – July 6

Brodie Nankervis

Heather Muir

Matt Doyle

Michele Dawson

Ian Lawford

Nicola Blatchford

Oliver Poland

Lanita Steer

Andrew Barnett

Jacqui Doyle

Oscar McNulty

Mary Fleming

T

he Australian team to contest the 2013 Junior World Orienteering Championships, to be held in the Czech Republic, was announced on the last day of the Easter carnival. The team is: Men: Oliver Poland (ACT) Ian Lawford (ACT) Brodie Nankervis (TAS) Oscar McNulty (WA) Andrew Barnett (ACT) Matt Doyle (VIC) Reserves: Todd Neve (VIC) Henry McNulty (WA) Women: Heather Muir (QLD) Jacqui Doyle (ACT) Mary Fleming (VIC) Lanita Steer (VIC) Nicola Blatchford (NSW) Michele Dawson (NSW) Reserve: Melanie Fuller (SA) Congratulations to all of those selected.

One new member of the Team, Lanita Steer of Dandenong Ranges OC, was told by friends that she wouldn’t need shoes any more – she’d be walking on air.

14 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

SPRINT: how to conquer the town?

Hradec Králové is one of the country´s oldest cities, having received its town privileges from the king Přemysl Otakar I. back in 1225. The town was sieged many times, for example by the harsh Swedish army in 1639. This year, the Swedes - together with armies from other nations - will be back to conquer the city centre again. Sharp brains and fast legs were chosen as weapons this time.

The analogy is not far from reality, as the Sprint embargo consists mainly of the old town hill and adjoining parks and streets. The main task will then be quite obvious - to find the fast and safe way through the old town fences and hidden corners. The town hall is rather well prepared for this siege.

Recently, some parts of old town fences were reconstructed, which may cause some hot moments for the assailants. As usual, the construction works are taking place when least welcome, which brings some extra troubles for the coursesetting team. However, the biggest threat vanished when the large reconstruction of Big Square was postponed to 2014 due to lack of funding.

According to the IOF discipline definition: “The Sprint profile is high speed. It tests the athletes’ ability to read and translate the map in complex environments, and to plan and carry out route choices running at high speed. The course must be planned so that the element of speed is maintained throughout the race. The course may require climbing but steepness forcing the competitors to walk should be avoided.

Finding the controls should not be the challenge; rather the ability to choose and complete the best route to them…”

The Host City of Hradec Králové (1225 – 2013) Hradec Králové (95,300 inhabitants) is the natural regional and administrative centre of East Bohemia, with a large hinterland and good facilities for commuting to schools and work. Hradec Králové as a city of cultural tourism and an attractive tourist destination has for a long time been among the most visited cities in the Czech Republic.

It is a town with much greenery; there are many orchards and it lies at the confluence of two rivers, the Labe (Elbe) and the Orlice. Natural recreational facilities available locally include forests, parks and lakes.

Hradec Králové has a dense network of integrated cycle paths and also lies on an important long distance cycling route, the Elbe Trail Elberadweg.

JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 15

JWOC 2013 PREVIEW

Terrain descriptions

LONG DISTANCE

SPRINT

Terrain form: moderately hilly to hilly, consisting of several ridges and valleys.

Terrain form: mostly flat except for a 15m high steep slope around the old town hill.

Vegetation: coniferous forest; rather large sections of young forest and felled areas; meadows.

Vegetation: partly park area - grass, flower beds, hedges, scattered trees; partly urban area with no vegetation.

Runability: very good to good; limited on steep slopes and in young forest and dense areas.

Runability: excellent.

Visibility: excellent.

Visibility: very good to good; limited in young forest and dense areas.

Paths and roads: urban and park areas with lots of fast routes.

Paths and roads: developed network of forest roads and paths enables fast running.

MIDDLE DISTANCE

RELAY

Terrain form: stony slopes, crowned by cliffs up to 10 m high.

Plenty of boulders up to 5m high. Uneven ground.

Terrain form: overall a flat area with some gentle slopes.

Vegetation: an old coniferous forest. Some areas of diffuse thickets and clearings.

Runability: generally good; in places significantly limited by stony ground, young forest and fallen branches.

Visibility: varies from very good to limited.

Paths and roads: Forest with average network of paths and tracks which generally enable fast running.

16 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

Vegetation: mixed forest of variable age; rich in vegetation detail; some under-vegetation (grass).

Runability: varies from excellent to poor (due to undervegetation and thickets).

Visibility: generally good, but often significantly reduced in areas of young forest.

Paths and roads: developed network of forest roads and paths, partly rectangular; big forestry roads enable extremely fast running.

ORIENTEERING AUSTRALIA

ORIENTEER of the YEAR 2012 – Julian Dent

J

ulian Dent from NSW is the 2012 Orienteering Australia Athlete of the Year, awarded to the orienteer considered by an Orienteering Australia Electoral College to have been the most outstanding performer on the international stage in 2012. At the World Orienteering Championships Julian was the only Australian to reach two A Finals, finishing 32nd in the Sprint Championship and 30th in the Long Distance. In addition he recorded 16th best time for his anchor leg in the WOC Relay.

Julian has represented Australia at WOC six times with his best result the 13th place in the Relay in Kiev, Ukraine, in 2007. Last year he moved to Sweden to train with the strong Swedish club Malungs OK. In the lead up to WOC 2012 Julian had an outstanding run in the Swiss World Cup Sprint on 25 June, finishing 12th.

SILVA AWARD FOR SERVICES TO ORIENTEERING: Fiona Calabro (QLD)

F

iona Calabro began her association with Orienteering in 1991. Like many who have come to Orienteering she began supporting her children’s participation in the sport. All three children, Nino, Lorenzo and Tomasina, went on to become members of the Queensland Schools Team and Lorenzo to represent Australia at Junior and Senior level.

Fiona herself rapidly developed her skills as an orienteer, subsequently achieving highly in major events and being regularly selected for Queensland and Australian Teams. Apart from the excellence demonstrated in competition, Fiona also took on significant administrative and coaching roles in State and National Orienteering and maintained these roles for many years.

Over her 22 years in Orienteering Fiona has been secretary of OQ and Administration officer; became an accredited Level 3 Orienteering coach; conducted many Level 0 and Level 1 coaching accreditation courses throughout Queensland; conducted many teachers workshops and programs for corporate groups; organised the annual Queensland camps for Juniors for 19 years; held the position of State Director of Coaching; became the Chair of the Queensland Coaching and Athlete Development Committee; was twice the manager of Australian JWOC teams touring Hungary and Spain; was on the Australian Junior Team selection panel; produced a number of State and National policy papers; and was interviewed about Orienteering on national radio.

The 2013 Australian WOC, JWOC and MTBO teams will be outfitted

by Trimtex

JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 17

DEVELOPMENT

Athlete Pathway Development Nick Dent – HP Operations Manager, Orienteering Australia

L

ooking at athlete development from the perspective of it being a pathway (journey) by an individual from the first beginnings in physical activity to sporting excellence on a world stage, any High Performance plan needs to extend beyond current elite athletes to include the needs of athletes and their support personnel throughout that pathway.

C. M ental skills and qualities - a huge will and inner motivation; open minded; analytical; positive, hard working, passionate, and self confident but humble; like the “pain”; knowing yourself and your states of mind; have your own drive; not dependent on coaches; have patience during the journey.

The ASC is currently asking National Sporting Organisations (NSO) to review and revise their High Performance plans “in the context of the nationally integrated high performance system”. The ASC acknowledge “the primacy of the NSO’s in the development of their sport specific high performance plans in the context of the nationally integrated high performance system”. However, at present time NSO’s “collectively lack a clear and consistent high performance (HP) planning framework against which to design or consider NSO plans”.

D. E nvironment and support - have inspiring people around; enough money; positive parental encouragement; understand benefit of having mentor or coach; open to learn from others.

Orienteering Canada has recently developed a Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) Guide – Orienteering - A Sport for All Ages. This guide has been developed in response to Sport Canada’s Long Term Athlete Development Resource Paper “Canadian Sport for Life”.

Orienteering Canada’s LTAD Guide is a nine-stage model based on the physical, mental, emotional and cognitive development of children and adolescents. Each stage reflects a different point in athlete development.

The implementation of an effective athlete development system will require a coordinated effort by the entire Orienteering community in order to create a truly integrated development system. The key components of this Orienteering community are: Parents, Athletes, Officials, Coaches, Clubs, State and National sporting organisations.

In his lecture “How to become a WOC Medal winner Analysis of elite orienteers’ training and background”, Janne Salmi (Finnish elite and National Coach) covers the following: 1. Skills and qualities needed by a top order orienteer; 2. B ackground and training of the WOC medal winners in Norway in 2010; 3. Summary and take home messages from the research.

The skills required to become a WOC medal winner are: A. P hysical – load-resistant body; good endurance capacity; good ground speed; knowledge and experience of various types of physical training.

B. Technical – sense of self control; full map understanding; high intelligence and comprehension in general or high specific Orienteering comprehension; broad register of technical methods and tools; experience of several types of terrain.

18 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

Salmi concludes that the skills and qualities of importance for a Junior are basic orienteering skills, mental skills, personal coach or support person, and to a lesser extent, 5000m time and hill running capacity.

For an Elite orienteer the most important skills and qualities are basic orienteering skills, mental skills, experience of different terrains, total training amount (including track 5000m time and hill running) and competition schedule.

Maybe it is this simple: Child: • Physical talent; • Lots of different sport activities; • Basic orienteering skills; • Inspiring family and surroundings.

Junior: • Inspiring sports environment; • A skilled coach / good training group; • Training to build up a solid base of O skills, ground speed, muscular condition.

Young Adult: • Inner motivation to develop and put all effort on sport; • Skilled coach and training group; • Large amounts of O in varied terrain creating technical stability; • Large training amount with focus on weaknesses.

Elite Athlete: • Willingness for hard work, perfectionism; • Creating economical possibilities; • Effective orienteering; • High level of mental and competition skills; • Training based on individual strengths.

In the next edition of The Australian Orienteer I will cover in more detail our plans for a new High Performance structure and Pathways Development. Stay tuned.

WOC 2013 PREVIEW

2013 World Championships Vuokatti, Finland – July 6-14

F

inland will be the WOC host country for the fourth time. The first World Orienteering Championships were organized in 1966 in Fiskars. Tampere was the host city in 1979 and 2001. In 2013 the World Championships will be centred around Vuokatti in Kainuu region.

The basic idea of Orienteering is still the same as it was in Fiskars in 1966 – navigation with the use of map in an unknown terrain. There are also many changes: maps are more accurate, new disciplines have been developed, the number of participating teams in World Championships has increased from 11 to over 40. For spectators, following the Orienteering competition has faced a revolution through the help of GPS. Kainuu Orienteering Week has also been organized since 1966. There were 315 participants at the first O-week. The record for Kainuu O-week is 5200 participants in 2007 in Vuokatti.

The event centre is Vuokatti Sports Institute, a compact venue with facilities for all activities. The aim is to create an ‘Olympic Village’ atmosphere for athletes and teams. This new approach takes the village to Vuokatti Sports Institute where the teams can enjoy possibilities for supplementary training, recreation, relaxation and, of course, excellent food specially planned for athletes.

Terrain Descriptions The Finnish terrain is fairly predictable – forests and marshes with rocks and boulders mostly covered in green moss. The forest and lake vistas are very beautiful, tempting one to pause for a while. But, for the orienteer it all adds up to a very green terrain often making individual features very difficult to discern. And then there’s the mooses.

Middle Distance qualification Middle Distance qualification will be in Vuokatti hills. Height difference is 110 metres. The upper parts of the hills are rocky and detailed. Vegetation varies from old spruce forest to young spruce and pine forest. Visibility in old forest is good but limited in young forest. Partly in the slopes there is undergrowth of blueberry.

The terrain contains elements of smaller marshes. There are only a few paths in the area.

Middle Distance Final and Relay Middle Distance Final and Relay will be in Vuokatti hills. Height difference is 120 metres. Top parts of the hills are rocky and detailed. Vegetation is mainly old spruce forest; in the top parts there is also some pine forest. Visibility in old forest is good but limited in young forest. Partly in the slopes the ground is soft and there is undergrowth of blueberry. The terrain contains elements of smaller marshes. There is a network of paths in the terrain.

Long Distance qualification The terrain for Long Distance qualification is fast coniferous forest. Height difference is 40 metres. In some parts contours are detailed. Vegetation is mostly pine forest. Visibility is mostly very good, but limited in dense forest. The ground is hard and clean, partly sandy. Some marshes and small lakes can be found in the terrain. Marshes are partly soft. There is a network of paths in the terrain.

Long Distance Final The terrain for Long Distance Final is fast coniferous forest.

Height difference is 60 metres. In some parts of the terrain contours are detailed. Vegetation is mostly pine forest varying from old to young forest. Visibility is mostly very good, in dense forest limited. The ground is hard and clean, partly sandy. Some marshes and small lakes can be found in the terrain. Marshes are partly soft. There is a network of paths in the terrain.

Sprint qualification Sprint qualification will be held in Katinkulta Holiday resort close to Vuokatti.

The terrain is a mixture of park terrain, residential area and forest area. In the park area there are lots of buildings, other built objects and planted vegetation.

Forest is pine with very good visibility and runability. The whole area has a dense network of roads and paths.

Sprint Final The arena of the Sprint Final is Sotkamo baseball stadium. Terrain for the Sprint Final is mainly urban, including some park type forest with hard ground and lots of paths. The urban area is almost flat.

Runability and visibility are very good.

JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER

19

WOC PREVIEW

Challenges for Australian WOC Team

Tom Quayle Family: Wife Anna and 3yr old son Linus.

Australian WOC Team coach since 2012, with Wendy Read; Bushrangers coach 2005-06

Tom Quayle – WOC 2013 Team Coach

Australian Team member at 5 WOC’s;

W

Best WOC results: 13th Long Distance - Sweden 2004; 6th Relay - Finland 2001

OC in Vuokatti will be characterised by a mixture of typical Nordic terrain and really fast, open forest.

Australia has a history of good results in Finland. WOC 2001 in Tampere was a good year for us with four top-20 placings and our best ever Men’s Relay result, a 6th place. We are hoping to return with some positive results this year as well.

This is what the orienteers will be faced with:

Sprint The Sprint will be in an area with a mixture of residential and holiday housing interspersed with sections of fast, open forest.

It will be nothing like recent WOC’s where Sprints have been in ultra technical medieval cities. This Sprint will be fast and furious!

The challenge will be to maintain high speed and be able to change quickly between urban and forest orienteering techniques.

I expect this Sprint to be really close so limiting time loss will be paramount.

Long Distance The Long Distance terrain will be open, sand based, pine forest with many small hills and lots of contour detail.

The Finals are a record 19.5 km for men and 13.4 km for women! The terrain may be less difficult this year, but don’t be fooled, this will be a true test of, above all, the physical and mental abilities of the runners to last the distance. Whilst it will be tough the challenges aren’t dissimilar to many areas we have in Australia.

Middle Distance / Relay The Middle Distance and Relay terrain will be more typical Nordic terrain. The area consists of a long ridge with small, bare rock covered hills with more dense vegetation on the lower areas and slopes. The visibility and undergrowth will vary putting high demands on all-round physical fitness. This terrain will be a genuine test of technical skill and fitness.

How to prepare Preparation for our runners based in Australia will be easier for the Sprint and Long Distance because of the lower technical demands for these races. More time will need to be spent though in the Middle Distance / Relay terrain to adapt to the style of orienteering and physical demands of the terrain.

Regardless of the differences in the terrain orienteering in Scandinavia always requires a balance of good technique, physical strength and speed. Technical skill is always linked to solid routines and ability to interpret and simplify the terrain at speed. And, of course, the ability to cope with the pressure and expectations surrounding WOC can’t be underestimated.

20 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

Several members of the national squad will be running the second World Cup series, The Nordic Orienteering Tour, in early June whilst others are heading to New Zealand for the Bushrangers test match to seek out good competition to fine tune their skills.

Our goals and expectations WOC 2012 in Switzerland provided a mixed bag of results.

Our goal this year is to improve on those results. Last year we had a lot of runners missing out on Finals by small margins, this year we want to be on the right side of the cut-off. We also want to maintain the positive team morale we have and continue to build the Team’s self-confidence for coming World Championships.

Australian BOOMERANGS Team for WOC 2013 Men:

Women:

Sprint – Julian Dent, Bryan Keely, Simon Uppill. (Lachlan Dow reserve)

Sprint – Felicity Brown, Jasmine Neve, Vanessa Round.

(Aislinn Prendergast reserve).

Middle Distance – Julian Dent, Lachlan Dow, Simon Uppill.

(Bryan Keely reserve)

Middle Distance – Hanny Allston, Jasmine Neve, Vanessa Round. (Susanne Casanova reserve).

Long Distance – Lachlan Dow. (no reserve)

Long Distance – Hanny Allston, Susanne Casanova, Aislinn Prendergast. (Vanessa Round reserve).

Relay – Julian Dent, Simon Uppill, and one other.

Relay – Hanny Allston, Vanessa Round, and one other.

Julian Dent (NSW)

Simon Uppill (SA)

Lachlan Dow (

Bryan Keely (Vic)

Hanny Allston (Tas)

Vanessa Round (SA)

Jasmine Neve (Vic)

Felicity Brown (

Aislinn Prendergast (Vic)

Susanne Casanova (SA) JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 21

INTERVIEW

JWOC 2012 Flower Ceremony

Emily Kemp (Canada) Top Canadian Junior, Emily Kemp, had been a rising star for some years and at JWOC 2012 in Slovakia it all came together for her when she won Bronze in the Long Distance event - the first medal won by a Canadian at world championship level. Emily wrote of her rise and rise in Orienteering for the e-bulletin O-Canada. Here we reprint it with their permission.

I

can still remember the fateful day that my dad decided to give Orienteering a try. I was only 8 years old and my memories consist mainly of just being lost in the great big woods of Gatineau Park. Fast forward a couple years and I’m participating in my first Canadian Orienteering Championships and Sass Peepre Junior Training Camp in the wilds of the Yukon where I learnt how to read contours. After experiencing my first big competition and meeting so many amazing new people, Orienteering soon became the main source of joy and motivation in my life.

A lot has changed since then; I am now an elite senior athlete training amongst world class orienteers in France. I sometimes have to pinch myself and ask “how on earth did I get here?”

There were quite a few not-so-easy decisions that I made along the way in order to get myself here.

I started training when I was about 13 years old; my dad invited me to run hill intervals with him and afterwards I couldn’t walk properly for almost a week. Obviously I thought being in so much pain was super-duper cool because I kept at it. For years my dad was the greatest training buddy ever! We’d tear through the hills of Gatineau Park on our mountain bikes, suffer through 10 kilometer time trials just for the fun of it, we’d wake each other up at 6am to go to spinning classes, and racing against each other every Sunday morning at the Ottawa Orienteering Club B-meets was the equivalent of running at the World Champs.

I’m the sort of person who absolutely adores a challenge, which probably explains the fact that I started running in women’s elite by the time I was 16. If I was going to travel twelve hours to an event, I wanted to get my money’s worth out in the woods!

I think that it was an important factor as far as improving my 22 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

Emily with Thierry Gueorgiou. Photo: Annika Billstam

orienteering goes. I was confronting navigation and distances that, though intimidating, let me grow and improve in leaps and bounds as an orienteer. Every 20 minute blow-up was a chance to work on my relocation skills and racing against women who were more experienced than I was gave me insight into the level that I wanted to attain.

An important turning point was when I went to my first Junior World Orienteering Championships in 2008. For my first international event I was terrified by all the older Scandinavian girls who were so strong and talented! I remember witnessing my first flower giving ceremony with the music, the cheering and the glorious ambience of everyone applauding for the winners.

My dream was to someday be up there; to be one of those girls proudly holding up the Canadian flag.

JWOC soon became my main motivation during the hard, cold, Canadian winters when the forests were full of snow and the competition season seemed so far away. I knew that I loved Orienteering enough to commit myself fully to it and that’s what I did. I tried to train every day, I analysed maps for the upcoming competitions, I played Catching Features during the winter and I lived for the moment when I’d climb onto the plane destined for Europe to spend the summer travelling and racing.

Moving to France was definitely the biggest decision that I have made in my entire life but the whole time I knew that it was the Emily with her dad.

right one because I knew that Orienteering was what I loved and wanted to do. Thierry Gueorgiou once told me that nothing is a sacrifice when it comes to pursuing your goals. Leaving behind my family, friends and everything that I knew was definitely not a piece of cake, but in the end I have never once regretted it. While living in France I have overcome crazy training volume increases, never-ending injuries, tears of frustration from feeling like I was in way over my head, and sadness from being so far away from my family.

Coming to France gave me so many new opportunities to train and compete. I was so hungry to orienteer that sometimes I did too much. Coupled with the stress of moving to a new country with a new language and so many new experiences my body went on strike quite often, developing tendinitis and other aches and pains in order to get me to slow down. Eventually I learned the very important skill of listening to my body and taking care of it when it was saying “Whoa Emily, I’m exhausted! I need some tender loving care otherwise something’s going to blow!”

My time here hasn’t been all injuries and tears though; it has been filled with spectacular memories of doing what I love most.

I was able to end my junior career with a bronze medal that I had dedicated so much of my life to. Never once have I thought that I had taken the wrong path and every day I wake up knowing that it’s one more day that I can work to get closer to my goals.

Even though I am no longer a junior, the learning definitely doesn’t stop here. I am always learning how to recover properly, adapting to the training volume and experimenting with different techniques. I will, however, always look back on my junior years with fond memories of growing up in such a wonderful community of orienteers.

Why get your Orienteering gear anywhere else?

Every junior with big dreams needs a helping hand whether it be from their local club to put on trainings, or their parents to drive them to competitions across the country. I’m very thankful to have gotten the help from my family, OOC, OQ and Orienteering Canada. As Robert Frost might say “two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference”. The best thing that I can say to all other juniors out there is to choose their own road, bumpy or smooth, twisty or straight, that will bring them closer to their goals.

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Contact: Peter Cusworth pcusworth@bigpond.com Ph 0409 797 023 JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 23

BOOK REVIEW

(short story extract from “Murder at the 14th Control”)

For A Map Wilf Holloway

H

e slipped his hand through the half open bedroom window and skilfully undid the catch. Gently he swung the window open. Then he waited, listening intently.

There was only the regular breathing of a man sleeping deeply.

Silently he eased himself through the window and stepped lightly onto the floor. All was dark and quiet. He touched a knob on the tiny torch he held and a slim beam of light swept over the room. There was the bed, and in it slept Harald Anderson, forest controller for that week’s World Orienteering Championships.

MURDER at the 14th Control

by Wilf Holloway Available from Orienteering Service of Australia (www.osoa. com.au or info@osoa.com.au) for $19.95

Reviewed by Michael Hubbert

A

case with so many twists and turns that Hercule Poirot would have been happy to apply his little grey cells to its solution. But he would have been less happy about having to splatter his shiny shoes and spats with mud to visit the crime scene.

On a wet and windy day in England’s Lake District, top orienteer Vic Harper is found dead near the 14th control.

The book title is a dead giveaway – this couldn’t have been an accident. Harper was odd for an orienteer – universally disliked by almost everyone, yet still able to make a successful business of his O-shop. There are plenty who would have liked to see him dead, but who had the opportunity?

As motives and opportunities are considered, suspects are listed, crossed off, and added back again, it becomes clear that nothing is clear and original assumptions must be thrown out before there is any chance of solving this crime. You will enjoy the Orienteering related criteria which must be considered before any conclusions can be made.

There’s a number of other short stories in this book, all of them with an Orienteering flavour. I particularly liked “The Race of His Life” which takes us back to pre-1989 when Germany was divided by the Iron Curtain, with electrified fences, guard towers, land mines and a cultural chasm. The twist at the end is not easy to see coming.

I would have liked some of the other stories to be fleshed out a little more, but the last one “Climb to Freedom” is a fascinating true story of how in 1984 a top Czechoslovakian orienteer, Pavel Ditrych, took his wife and young daughter on a hazardous journey through high and rugged mountain terrain from Yugoslavia into Italy, then Austria and ultimately West Germany to start a new life as political refugees.

I recommend this book to all of you. Happy reading.

24 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

The intruder stepped carefully over to the bed, making no sound on the plush hotel carpet. He pointed his torch near the sleeping man’s pillow, allowing no light to land on those unconscious eyes. Then his heart leapt, there it was! So the newspaper reports really were correct, then.

A corner of brown envelope stuck out from under the pillow. Anderson did indeed sleep guarding the World Championship maps!

A few years ago none of this could have happened.

Orienteering had been a pure sport and its World Championships were untarnished by the sporting corruption prevailing elsewhere. Then the IOF and IOC had seen fit to bring Orienteering into the Olympic Movement.

Suddenly there were nations which would pay almost any price for the political value of an Olympic gold medal.

Carefully, oh so carefully, the burglar tugged at the envelope and slid it smoothly out from beneath the pillow. He had nerves of steel and he took his time. The sleeper stirred and he paused, waiting patiently until Anderson had settled again. The Norwegian didn’t trust hotel safes overnight, perhaps he was going to see that bed­room pillows were not much better.

Then the envelope was finally free and the thief took it over to a corner of the room and opened it carefully. One set of maps was marked ‘men’ and the other ‘women’.

He photographed them all and then put the miniature camera in his jacket pocket again. Now came the possibly problematical part. He pulled a small folder from his jacket front and searched through the dozens of envelopes it contained. Soon he had found one matching Anderson’s in every detail. What little information the newspapers had given had indeed proven to be useful reading.

He put the maps into the new envelope and sealed it.

Quietly he crossed the room back to the bed and half pushed the valuable item under the pillow again, as far as he dared. Anderson wouldn’t sus­pect anything in the morning, thinking merely that the envelope had been slightly displaced as he moved around in his sleep.

The world’s first O-thief then left the room as he had entered it, cleverly closing the window behind him. In his camera he had vital information enabling his compatriots to run fantastic times later that week.

Anderson slept on peacefully, completely unaware that the maps had been illegally copied. But immeasurably happy in the knowledge that the real maps lay idly amongst a pile of newspapers on the armchair.

PRODUCT REVIEW

SI-card 11 Julian Dent

T

First with Orienteering becoming more competitive every year winning margins are smaller and smaller. In 2010 at the World Championships in Trondheim Norway, Matthias Muller from Switzerland won gold by 2.3 seconds, with 6th place only 4.5 seconds behind.

Secondly, with the increasing spectator nature of our sport large noisy crowds are a common occurrence at the large competitions.

In these circumstances you cannot hear the audible confirmation from the SI unit itself and hence rely on visual feedback that the SI-card 11 provides.

These two factors combined show the value of the new feature of the SI-card 11. The new SI-card 11 is also twice as quick as the previous SI-card 9, so get the edge on your competitors. Nailing each control quickly and receiving visual assurance while exiting the control with the SI-card 11 can save seconds and that can be the difference that some of us need!

Product Details The SI-Card11 belongs to the third generation of SI-Cards. SI-Cards11 register the data record in 60 ms. This is twice as fast as SI-Card8/9, the most advanced SI-Cards so far. In general SI-Card11 offers a smarter user experience.

SI-Card11 features an integrated electronic module. There is an optical feedback signal (flashing LED) indicating the finished time registration process.

SI-11 Specifications Model type Finger stick Number range 9,000,001 ... 9,999,999 Data exchange time 60 ms Clear time < 0,5 s Warranty Warranty 5 years, expected life time up to 20 years Operating range -20°C - +50°C Battery life time Up to 30,000 flashing cycles Protection class IP 65 (DIN EN 60529) – Protection against penetration of dust – Protection against powerful water jets from all directions Control records 128 Special records Clear, Check, Start, Finish SI system compatibility SI-Stations 7/8, firmware V5.74 and higher Data format 24h-format, day of week, counter for up to 4 weeks Weight 12 g Dimensions 70 mm x 19 mm x 8 mm Colours Transparent holder, chromium plated tip with SI-logo Typical application Adventure and Outdoor sport; Orienteering

Julian tests SI-card 11 at 2013 World Cup

There is exactly one feedback signal cycle from the SI-Station.

Then next 11 feedback signals will be transmitted by the SI-Card within 5 seconds. SI-Card11 feedback signals are powered by battery. Power consumption is very low. Based on calculations there is enough power to activate up to 30,000 flashing cycles.

The SI-Card11 features a fall back option. If the battery is empty the device works like the passive SI-Card10. So any risk is eliminated. SI-Card11 comes with a chromium plated tip and transparent body. The flashing LED illuminates the SI logo in the tip and emits into the transparent body.

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JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 25

MAPPING FOR SPRINT

SPRINT MAPS – Uncrossable features

Eric Andrews - OA Technical Officer

T

here is now an increasing number of Sprint events occurring regularly throughout Australia. However, there are only a limited number of urban areas suitable to map to the highest Sprint standard. Because we rely on retaining access to areas such as schools, and universities to conduct Sprint events, it is important that as competitors we do not break the basic rules, such as running across areas that are mapped as Out of Bounds, uncrossable, or forbidden to cross. We do not want to lose access to maps because someone was trying to save a few seconds. Sometimes this may occur because competitors are not familiar with the symbols and colours used on Sprint maps to depict such areas.

One simple case in point is the use of the colour ‘olive green’ which is used to show areas that are ‘forbidden to cross’. Mostly it is used to show the boundaries of gardens, but it can be used anywhere that the landowner does not want orienteers to go and where a symbol in the colour purple is inappropriate.

On some Sprint maps there are thick hedges which should be shown with a very dark green line (that has small black dots in it). This symbol represents a feature which is ‘forbidden to cross’. Of course, there can be other hedges, drawn with a lighter green line, that usually have gaps in amongst the bushes and where it is permissible to cross. Where this occurs, care needs to be taken not to damage any plants.

Uncrossable walls have caused some orienteers confusion, even at World Championships.

The thin black line that is used to mark the outline of some gardens, paths, walkways, etc can obviously be crossed.

However, the next thicker line has options to cross (such as the boundary of a bitumen road, or an area of bitumen parking).

Where this same line is used to depict the outline of a building, it is ‘forbidden to cross’.

26 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

Forbidden to cross

Forbidden to cross

May be possible to get through or jump over

Outline of gardens, paths, canopies – can be crossed.

Outline of buildings – cannot be crossed.

Boundary line for roads – can be crossed

Buildings often have open areas underneath through which the orienteer can pass, (shown as light grey) but where the outside wall, of part of the building, prevents passage, the line here is generally NOT drawn any thicker than that used for the building outline. It should be obvious to see where you cannot get through, as it will be a building wall, a closed side of a verandah or even the closed side of a covered walkway.

Building can be entered by crossing the thin black line.

A covered walkway with one side uncrossable using the building outline symbol.

Two examples of uncrossable walls using the thick black line.

The uncrossable wall symbol, which is a very thick black line, is generally used when the wall is free standing, or is part of a special entrance to a building or church, or used in landscaping and in areas where the ground level changes.

Fences may be marked as uncrossable even when it looks easy to get over them. Inevitably, there is a wall below the fence which cannot be seen from on top.

Therefore crossing it becomes dangerous. The mapper is responsible for identifying all points of danger and the controller should then ensure that the course planner does not place legs across, or close to, such areas in case it encourages such risk taking.

The uncrossable fence symbol can be difficult to identify on the run and there are a lot of stories where orienteers did not recognise what was ahead of them. They either turn back and look for an alternative route, or climb over the fence, which can affect the outcome of an important race. Often it is difficult to draw the symbol in the space that is left. Maybe a thick black line is a better option.

Example of an uncrossable wall on side of covered canopy where there was no room to use thick black line (the wall was galvanised iron) and then to the north where there was room to use the thick black line, the wall was brick.

Example of a high fence which from the top side looks crossable, but it has another wall on the bottom side.

It is not always possible to fit the wall into the room remaining.

Also the uncrossable fence shown on the verandah of the building is because the front of the building is quite high and it is dangerous to cross. Orienteers have to trust that the mapper has depicted the area properly and fairly.

The symbol for a low wall is a fairly thick grey line which is difficult to read on the run, and it looks out of place on the map, because of its thickness. Where the wall is made of rock, brick, besser block, or something similar, I have started using the symbol for a low rock wall.

This makes the low wall easier to identify.

Standard crossable wall.

Crossable wall on side of covered area.

Crossable wall symbol I use for rock, brick, concrete etc.

Crossable wall symbol I use for timber

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Another ‘forbidden to cross’ line is one marked by a series of purple, or magenta coloured crosses. This was used in an event earlier this year in Queensland, where a high, electrified dog fence was marked this way to help orienteers see more clearly where this fence was located.

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In summary, the following symbols are part of the ‘forbidden to cross’ group; Impassable cliff, Impassable body of water, Impassable marsh, Impassable vegetation, Impassable wall, Impassable fence or railing, Building, Area with forbidden access (olive green), Impassable pipeline, Uncrossable boundary, Out-of-Bounds area and Temporary construction or closed area. Mappers should consider highlighting these ‘forbidden to cross’ symbols on their Sprint maps.

Further details about these symbols are contained in the IOF’s International Specification for Sprint Orienteering Maps (ISSOM) – January 2007 and all Sprint mappers, course setters and controllers should familiarise themselves with these.

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COACHING

The Impact of Cycle Training on Orienteering Performance Hanny Allston

I

am sure many of us have had to stop running and orienteering for a period of time. In desperation to maintain our fitness we find ourselves delving into the garage to pull out that old rusty bike. Perhaps the novelty of running training everyday has begun to waiver and in a moment of weakness you are walking away from the bike shop with a shiny new machine? Or are you like myself who sometimes migrates into the gym when the temperatures plunge and the thought of another day with cold, wooden fingers is just too unappealing? The purpose of this article is to broach the difficult topic of cross-training for athletic performance and to review the literature to determine if cycle training impedes or supports our running and orienteering.

Despite strong attempts to uncover the most recent research on the crossover between cycling and running, very little appears to have been conducted in this area. The most significant information discusses the need to balance swimming, cycling and running for optimal triathlon performance. For example, Millet et. al. (2002) tried to determine the extent of specificity between disciplinary training in triathletes. They concluded that swimming appears to be a highly specific activity, which does not gain nor provide benefits from, or to, the other disciplines. This is also supported by Tanaka (1994) who suggested that swimming training may result in minimum transfer of training effects, especially on the cardiovascular system. However, Millet et. al. did determine that cross-training effects do occur between cycle training and running performance in the elite triathletes.

on the cardiovascular system of thirteen athletics athletes over six weeks. He concluded that his subjects displayed no significant differences in their running economy or VO2max results post cycle training. ‘Cross-training effects never exceed those induced by the sport-specific training mode… the principles of specificity of training tend to have greatest significance in the highly trained athlete.’ (Foster et. al., 1995) White et. al. (2003) conducted a study to examine whether substituting 50% of run training volume with cycle cross-training would maintain the competitiveness of female distance runners over five week recuperation phases. They noted that although there was a slight decrease in their 3000m times, there was no actual loss of aerobic performance. They also found that for cyclists, the nature of the increased physical demands of running may actually lead to a positive effect on cycle performance.

Therefore, for the elite runners, this discussion of the most relevant literature suggests that nothing beats the specificity of

In a later study, Millet et. al. (2009) conducted a synopsis of the literature to determine what the physiological differences are between cycling and running. They compared physiological variables such as maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) and heart rate variances in triathletes, cyclists and runners.

At the conclusion of their comparisons they determined that runners and cyclists can achieve similar VO2max results in their specialized disciples but not if they attempt to conduct the test in their non-targeted sport. A triathlete who specializes in both disciplines may achieve equal results on a treadmill and a cycle ergometer. Within the literature they also found an increased rate and level of fatigue in runners than in cyclists that caused a decrease in maximal strength. Perhaps due to this, there were significant differences in heart rate training zones for runners and cyclists. Therefore, they concluded that running places the body under greater demands and that there is more physiological training transfer from running to cycling than vice versa. Tanaka et. al. (1994) supports this be stating, ‘the nonspecific training effects seem to be more noticeable when running is performed as a cross-training mode’.

Foster et. al. (1995) suggested that cycle cross-training can create positive muscular changes to aid running performance but not to the same degree as increasing one’s specific training. More recently, Smith (2012) conducted a study of cross-training benefits 28 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

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running to run. During the height of the season and in the lead up to major Orienteering races, it would be preferable that cycle cross-training is not used as a substitute to running training. The most positive effects of cycle training could be during the offpeak time or following injury, or as a recovery activity following hard training. During these periods, cycle training may maintain previous aerobic performance up to around six weeks. Following this, a decrease in running function may occur.

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So far we have focused on the training effects in the elite athlete but what significance does this hold for us mere mortals? After all, cross-training is a widely used approach for structuring a training programme. For the general population, evidence suggests that cross-training may be highly beneficial in improving overall fitness. Similarly, cross-training may be an appropriate supplement when beginning running and during periods of overtraining or psychological fatigue, such as during periods of high intensity employment (Tanaka, 1994).

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Finding the right balance of cross-training to running is a matter of working through your Orienteering goals, having an understanding of periodization principles, and determining the importance of running outcomes. During the off-season, jump on a bike and build up some strength whilst enjoying the novelty of doing something different. When the big races are approaching, limit the cycling to easy training days and focusing on maximising your running potential. A good coach should be able to assist you with finding the right balance.

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References: Foster, C., Hector, L.L., Welsh, R., Schrager, M., Green, M.A., & Snyder, A.C. (1995). Effect of specific versus cross-training on running performance.

European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology. 70(4), 367-372, DOI: 10.1007/BF00865035 Millet, G.P., Candau, R.B., Barbier, B., Busson, T., Rouillon, J.D., & Chatard, J.C. (2002). Modelling the transfers of training effects on performance in elite triathletes. International Journal of Sports Medicine.

23(1), 55-63. DOI: 10.1055/2-2002-19276 Millet, G.P., Vleck, V.E. & Bentley, D.J. (2009). Physiological differences between cycling and running: Lessons from triathletes. Sports Medicine; 39(3), 179-206 Smith, A. (2012). Effect of independent crank cycling training on running economy in collegiate distance runners (unpublished work).

Tanaka, H. (1994). Effects of cross-training. Transfer of training effects on VO2max between cycling, running and swimming. Sports Medicine 18(5), 330-339.

White, L.J., Dressendorfer, R.H., Muller, S.M., & Ferguson, M.A. (2003).

Effectiveness of cycle cross-training between competitive seasons in female distance runners. The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 17(2)

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JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 29 Arial Black 12pt spärrad +900

18/3/10 11:52:32 AM

2

DEVELOPMENT

The Blue Sparks Bush Training Camp David Poland

For six years now Orineteering ACT has been holding a training camp for the Primary School kids group known as Blue Sparks. The Editor asked David Poland to explain some of the key ingredients that have made it so successful.

David – The Blue Sparks Bush Training Camp began in 2006 as a small low key get-together of a few families on a bush block about an hour’s drive from Canberra. Since then it has grown every year so that we now have some 70 people (parents and kids and elites) attending. For the last two years we invited along the NSW equivalent – the NSW Wildfires. This collaboration between States has proved most successful and each year the camp grows and grows. Combining the two groups has meant that we can share talent, ideas and expertise. The bush block we camp on has plenty of standard Orienteering terrain features which means the children and parents are surrounded by erosion gullies, pits, log piles, termite mounds, boulder outcrops, mine diggings and aqueducts.

I understand that you focus a lot on the parents.

Yes this camp is as much for the parents as it is for the kids. The parents tend to either know a lot and are keen to teach or know very little and are keen to learn. The reality is that unless the parents become keen on Orienteering there will be no-one to drive the kids to events.

Cardinal Points - note the laminated cards on the ground and the arms pointing south.

So how do you involve the parents?

Firstly, the kids are not allowed to attend unless accompanied by a parent. This is quite different to many other sports where the parents are encouraged to leave their children with the “coach” to be taught. We try to encourage parents to assist someone else’s child. This seems to work best as somehow it proves very difficult to coach your own child. We do a lot of swapping around between groups too. We apply this approach to kids of all stages – sometimes putting more advanced kids with beginner parents, beginner kids with more advanced kids for mentoring, and oversighted by an adult. Different combinations depending on the activitiy.

What sort of activities did you have ?

All in all over the weekend we had about 8 hours of Orienteering activities. We began with a detailed slow walk as a large group led by Jock Davis in a complex well-mapped gold mining area, located around 30mins from the camp site. This had the advantage of focusing the parents’ minds as to the complexity and scope of maps. It’s fair to say that even the best of us learnt something from this activity! Other activities included two onehour sessions of Round Robin activities, night Orienteering, and a mini-Rogaine. Most importantly we left lots of time for playing, feasting, socialising and swim–Oing.

Both kids and parents listening 30 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

Can you tell us about the Round Robin activities?

Yes, this started because we just had so many activities and ideas we wanted to try out. So we decided to have one-hour sessions divided into four mini workshops of 15 minutes each. Groups of about 4 adults and 4 kids were chosen (parents were split from their own children). The groups would then rotate around 4 stations, each with a different activity. At each station there would be one older child (leader) and one experienced adult (who would act as a mentor) for that activity. On the first round the adult would lead the activity but by the end of the hour the child leader was running the show.

These Round Robin activities proved very popular both with adults and with kids alike. I think one of the keys to its success was that one additional adult acted as a floating assistant moving from activity to activity as difficulties arose (eg one group ran out of things to do so we had to invent more activities at that station). It worked best to alternate a sedentary station with a more energetic one. 15 minutes was a good time - you need a little longer for the first round and a little less for the final round but the secret is to move quickly between stations to keep the ideas and brain cells firing. I had thought of turning it into a little competition but this was not necessary and may well have detracted from the learning process. Having an older child as a ‘leader” worked well as they seemed to improve their “lesson technique” as the hour went on.

Parents and kids listening.

Older kids teach younger kids.

Contours instruction station

One thing I noticed was that the parents found this the perfect formula. Perhaps they could pretend that they were helping when really they were learning just as much themselves. Splitting up the families worked well too but because the activities were all in close physical proximity no child felt abandoned by their parent.

But the best thing was keeping up the pace and moving quickly between activities.

And do you plan to have another Blue Sparks Bush Camp next year?

Absolutely, and in fact that seems to be another secret to success.

Having it on the same date (the last weekend in November) each year helps a lot. In addition we have placed it in a sequence immediately after the kids’ Map Mates Series and Primary School Champs which now take place every year in October and November. Everyone knows the annual routine and knows when it is on. Our aim is to capture Term 4 as the term that kids choose Orienteering as their number one sport. In the following year when schools resume after Christmas holidays, we are hopeful that we will lead these same kids back into regular Orienteering.

We are very lucky in the ACT in that we have formal Orienteering activities every week throughout the year.

Parents and kids learning.

Blue Sparks ACT would also like to acknowledge the help of all the parents who made last year’s camp so successful, especially Maggie Jones and Barbara Hill from NSW. JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 31

DEVELOPMENT

SOME ORIENTEERING GAMES FROM BLUE SPARKS Knuckle Orienteering Aim is to teach: reading contours Equipment needed: old maps, your hand, a marker pen What to do: discuss in small groups contours, start by identifying hilltops (knolls), then saddles, then gullies, then spurs.

Advanced version: Close your left fist. Have your fist so that the knuckles are pointing skywards. Draw contours on your closed fist. Your knuckles are knolls, between each knuckle is a saddle, the gaps between your fingers are gullies and your fingers are spurs.

Directional Dash – nine flags with SI units laid out like nine dots on a dice.

thumb in the correct place. They do not have to miss a turn but the correct people win a point.

In order to demonstrate how contours relate from land to map the instructor makes a fist. He then draws concentric circles around a knuckle. The line for any particular circle should be at the same height around the knuckle. The instructor then flattens his hand to show how the lines look on a flat surface.

Memory Card Game Aim is to teach: Map symbols, Control symbols.

Equipment needed: 25 sets of 3 pre-made Cards (words, map symbol, control symbol) What to do: Hold up map symbols and get people to say what they are. Then lie it on the table next to word card so people can see both as a pair. First use the “easy” ones then the harder ones. First use word cards and map symbols. Later introduce control symbols.

Advanced version: Play a memory game with cards face down. Each person has a turn to turn over 2 (harder), 3 or 4 (easiest version) cards. If they match they win a point, if not the cards are turned face down again. First use easy ones then add harder ones. Try to match pairs or triplets.

Advanced versions: (1) If time permits you can play a musical chairs type game and start excluding people. To make it harder people have to run or do it solo. (2) Another version which works well in a large group with a large grid is to play in teams of two. One player runs around, the other watches and calls out if their team mate is making a mistake. (3) To make it even faster and more fun replace the cones with electronic units, use SI sticks and a printer for splits timing.

To record splits and overall time you will need one additional unmapped ‘Big start’ and “Big Finish” in addition to all the mini starts and finishes on the maps.

Join the dots Snowman and Christmas tree; this version is good for young kids at Christmas time. The cones or SI sticks are arranged in the shape of a large triangle. The pre drawn maps join some – but not all – of the dots to form pictures such a a snowman or car. The kids have to walk around and ‘join-the dots’.

Mud map. Porridge Orienteering Aim is to teach: Contours

Aim is to teach: Orientation, Thumbing.

Equipment needed: A small pile of sand or better still some mud or clay on a deep baking tray. Paper. Many coloured pens.

Equipment needed: pre-made sketch maps, cd player with music, 9 cones - laid out in a grid like the dots on a dice, the grid can be any size, usually about 6m x 6 m works well.

For adults and elites or for an aerobic workout make the grid larger. For kids have a milk crate with north written on it or elites can use their thumb compass.

What to do: Make a small simple landscape out of mud, sand (or porridge) with two knolls, a saddle and a creek. Get competitors to draw a map of the landscape.

What to do: explain that the start triangle and the finish is different for each map. When you reach the finish of one map go to the start triangle on the next map. Note that each map needs to be reorientated as north is different on each map. Start with a small grid and a slow training exercise – In pairs - one experienced and one beginner. Teach how to thumb the map from one cone to the next. Play the music.

Stop the music and competitors have to “freeze” (including freezing the map). The judge determines which players do not have the map orientated correctly and which do not have the

Advanced version: Add jelly beans as termite mounds and brochili sticks as trees and so on and mark these on the maps as well.

Directional Dash

32 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

Porridge version: Cook up some thick porridge, let it cool and construct the landscape. Fill the tray with milk to hide the landscape until there is only one island. Draw this small island with one contour. Gradually remove milk about 50 ml at a time revealing more islands. Draw a new contour at each recession of the milk. This is an excellent way to teach contours especially if you START with the tray full of milk.

PARTICIPATION

Building Commitment to Orienteering (or, Doing the Millennium Point Shuffle)

Debbie Dodd (Dandenong Ranges OC)

Like most other sports, Orienteering is constantly preoccupied with attracting newcomers, using a range of programs, marketing strategies, social media, government grants, etc, to do so. We actually do it quite well – at any Melbourne Park & Street event you’ll find half a dozen or more “newbies” who have googled Orienteering and decided to give it a try. We usually do all the right things: welcome them, coach them, encourage them to check our websites and sign them up to receive newsletters. Most newcomers provide very positive feedback about their experience, and leave with a cheery “see you next time!” but how many do we ever see again? And of those few, how many go on to join clubs, set courses, or become otherwise involved?

T

he newcomer who has a good time and tells a few friends is of course highly valued, but if they move onto another sport after a few weeks or months, then we tend to shrug our shoulders and let them go. The best outcome for a sport that relies so heavily on volunteers, who also want to participate, is to put the most effort into what will provide the most benefit, i.e. potential new volunteers who will in future help with the workload, provide new ideas and keep the sport going and, hopefully, growing.

There is a general reluctance to seem too pushy or aggressive, or to ask newcomers to commit themselves to returning – most of our programs and series provide a very casual approach which is attractive in its flexibility but does not reward continued participation. But then, there are thousands of expensive, lapsed gym memberships, so asking for a long term financial commitment is not necessarily the answer.

Orienteering is actually better at retaining participants than many other sports. We provide competition at all levels and for all ages – “a sport for life”. Many people who try Orienteering in their youth come back to it in later life because they remember it as being family friendly, interesting, a little bit on the adventurous side, and non contact. It also does not suffer from “ugly parent syndrome” so mums and dads find it an attractive option for getting their kids outdoors without some of the risks involved in team contact sports. It’s also inexpensive and accessible at the entry level.

So why do so many people try it once or twice, then never return?

Or, what is it about Orienteering that turns a handful of people into loyal converts (aka “tragics”)? Is there a single factor that convinces people that this is the sport for them? Ask almost anyone at a Melbourne Park & Street event why they have kept coming back rain, hail or shine every week for 20 years or more,

and they will invariably tell you “to see/run with/compete against my friends”. While some people do come literally just for the run (or walk), the vast majority love to arrive early and/or stay around afterwards comparing notes. The social attraction of Orienteering simply cannot be underestimated.

Traditionally viewed by some as a highly individual sport, mostly enjoyed by well educated professionals who enjoy being outdoors in relative solitude, the truth can be quite different. On a personal level, I know the thing that gets me out the door on a freezing midwinter Melbourne evening to run around dark streets, is a social commitment – everyone else will be doing it and they’ll expect me to be there. So I’d better turn up! Besides the benefits of exercise and all the other things we know are good reasons for going along, being part of a group is a powerful motivator.

So how do we build this social commitment? Melbourne Park & Street has a number of strategies which by accident or design have contributed strongly to creating an atmosphere that keeps people coming back for more. These include mass starts – vital for creating an air of excitement and a common goal. They also lead naturally to mass finishes so people can chat to each other immediately afterwards.

Another strategy is provision of food and drinks (Saturday winter events in Melbourne are known by all as “cake-O”, and the simple act of asking people to bring a plate not only gets them involved, but it keeps many socialising for up to an hour afterwards).

We also have summer BBQs or dinners, and end of series presentation nights. We encourage people to help out in a small or introductory way by “just collecting a few controls” or setting/ packing up, and we strongly support their first efforts at course setting or mapping.

JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 33

PARTICIPATION

The scoring system, where participants in a series are divided into competition groups based on performance rather than age or gender, allow everyone to find a level of comparison with half a dozen others of similar ability, and all sorts of mini competitions evolve. This alone can keep people coming along regularly as they strive to beat their fiercest rivals over the course of 10 or 20 weeks. We also sell season tickets which offer a healthy discount over the payas-you-go price. We have a Facebook page (“StreetO Wild Bunch”) where participants can post their maps and routes, discuss the pros and cons of that night’s course, and confess their worst mistakes.

All Melbourne clubs have colourful and attractive uniforms which provide an instant identifier; many newcomers choose their club on the basis of which running top they like best (when the market is offering a range of almost identical products, like petrol or milk, it becomes all about the branding!).

All of the above are obvious ways to attempt to retain participants, and I imagine most Orienteering programs around Australia employ at least some of them. But I believe there is one initiative in Melbourne (and soon to be applied to regional Park & Street series in Macedon and Geelong) that is unique: The Millennium Club.

Brainchild of expert statistician and all round sports enthusiast Ray Howe (DRV), The Millennium Club was formed five years ago to recognise the long term commitment displayed by many Park & Street regulars. Ray had been keeping participation statistics for some years, and while we knew that the number of people who participated less than say 10 times made up a huge proportion of overall figures, Ray also noticed that a small number of people made a massive contribution to participation rates by attending between 50 and 150 events per annum. Every annum! He believed that such dedication should be recognised in some way, and so The Millennium Club (TMC) was born.

Strongly supported by Orienteering Victoria, TMC has three levels of membership – attendance at 500 events earns you Associate status; 750 events makes you a Companion; and after 1000 events you become a Legend. Statistics are kept from January 1st 2000, as records prior to then are incomplete; hence the name.

Anyone who competes twice a week on a regular basis will achieve membership after about 5 years, and will become a Legend after a decade. Attendance is defined as registering, paying, and visiting at least one control – or setting a course.

As people achieve their milestones, recognition is given at the briefings prior to mass starts, so a wide audience is reached (up to 280 people were there to applaud latest Legend Tina Smith).

There is a dedicated website which charts everyone’s progress.

We also have a very well attended annual dinner where formal presentations of certificates are made to the new Legends, who each also receive a specially numbered keyring – something like the caps received by Test cricketers. Other awards such as Course Setter of the Year are announced, and there’s a hotly contested Park & Street orienteering trivia competition.

In the first year four Legends were inducted – Geoff Hudson (NEV), magazine editor Mike Hubbert (BKV), John Sheahan (BKV) and Ken O’Brien. There are currently 22 Legends, 18 Companions, and 42 Associates.

So how does this help with retaining participants? Firstly, it’s become a significant incentive to attend – to the point where those suffering minor injuries (or recovering from surgery) will come along and do “the Millennium Point Shuffle” – i.e. make their way to one or maybe two controls, to earn their Millennium point. You often hear people say “I wouldn’t have come tonight but I had to get my point”. Of course that’s probably not the real reason they came; but it certainly helps when your commitment to your sport is being recognised and applauded. Not everyone can win or have made the best route choices, but everyone can enjoy the fact that their participation is highly valued.

More importantly, it demonstrates to newcomers that this really is a sport for life; if so many people enjoy Orienteering so much that they’ve come to (gasp) 1000 events!, then surely it must have something going for it. And hopefully some of them who might have been ambivalent about giving it a second go might think “I’d better stick around and find out if I am missing something I didn’t immediately appreciate”.

No single initiative can “solve” the problem of retaining participants. There are many other similar ideas used by other sports and community groups to keep members interested beyond the immediate rewards of competitive success. Whether it is an achievement badge or the recognition awarded in martial arts (coloured belts), programs that reward members for active participation cannot be ignored when trying to retain and build membership.

Noel McVey accepts MEFTY Award from Ray Howe.

34 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

PARK & STREET

2013 Melbourne Park & Street Orienteering Championships Ray Howe

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he 2013 Melbourne Park & Street Orienteering Championship Finals were held on the Warralong map in the northern suburb of Montmorency on Wednesday 6th March, 2013 in hot conditions. Course setter, Vic Sedunary, used the many features of the location, several bridges over the Plenty River, large areas of treed and open parkland and the surrounding hilly residential streets to ensure that the 88 finalists were appropriately challenged.

Eight qualifying events spread across the four Melbourne Summer Park & Street Orienteering Series provided opportunities for eligible candidates to qualify for the limited places available in each of the twelve Championship Finals, including eight running finals and four power walking finals.

The Scatter-O format, requiring competitors to visit a designated number of controls in each event, was used for the running finals and the usual Score format was used for the power walking finals. As the Championship Finals were scheduled to run in conjunction with the normal event for the Wednesday Eastern Series, a mass start for all Courses was retained and finalists were expected to contend with the normal “hurly burly” of another 130 competitors. In an atmosphere of anticipation, maps were distributed in a rolled-up form to guarantee a fair and equitable start.

The winner of the Mens Open Final (A Course) was Bruce Arthur (MFR) who consolidated his position as the leading Park & Street orienteer in Melbourne with a comfortable victory over Andrew Hester(DR) and Peter Hobbs(DR). The quiet achiever, Geoff McLean (BK) surprised his more experienced opponents to win the Mens Senior (40-49yrs) Final (A Course) from Ted van Geldermalsen (YV) and Jeremy Hirst (TK). The Mens Veteran (50-59 yrs) Final (B Course) was a clear win to Tim Hatley (BK) from Greg Andrews (BK) and Stephen Collins (BK). Tony Bird (DR) asserted his dominance in easily winning the Mens SuperVet (60+ yrs) Final (C Course) from wily veterans Reg Saunders (DR) and Roger Slade (BK).

Rachel Johnson (NE) lead Kate Gavens and Karen Robinson across the line to take out the Womens Open Final (B Course). Noted Mountain Bike orienteer Carolyn Jackson (MFR) showed her versatility with a win in the Womens Veteran (50+ yrs) Final (C Course) from Coral Bayley (BK) and Denise Pike (DR).

The Junior (Under 19) Final was a gathering of eight highly talented junior orienteers. Angus Robinson (BK), a qualifier from the Western Series, was a brilliant winner in this C Course event

from Patrick Jaffe (MFR) and Nick Collins (BK). Lanita Steer (DR) shaded sister Asha for first place in the Girls section of this event as well as providing strong competition for the boys. Alan Damen (BK), Tim Jackson (MFR) and Matt Heritage (BK) completed a dominance of the juniors in the overall C Course results.

Andrew Hunter (BK) outscored Steven O’Connell (OV) and Ian McLean (TK) in the Mens Open (PW) Final and Michael Hayward (NE) was a clear winner in the Mens SuperVet (PW) Final from Phil Torode (DR) and Graham Leary (BK). The Western Series provided both winners in the Womens PW Finals. Maria Main (BK) won the Womens Open (PW) Final from Ros King (DR) and Annie Hollaway (BK) while Lyn Green (YV) pipped Sandy Burgoyne (BK) and Rosie Salvaris (BK) for the first place medal in the Womens SuperVet (PW) Final.

The Championships were keenly contested and succeeded in bringing together orienteers from all the Melbourne-based Orienteering clubs and representatives from the four metropolitan Melbourne Summer Park & Street Orienteering Series for a oncea-year showcase event to celebrate the talents and skills of Park & Street Orienteering in Melbourne.

JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 35

SYDNEY METRO

Mitchell Park Metro League Terry Bluett (BN-NSW)

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ith many members yet to experience the joys of bush Orienteering, I thought Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d run through how I approached my course at the Sydney Metro League at Mitchell Park. I will explain what I was thinking and looking out for as I went around the course, and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll include the mistake I made and what led to that mistake. The blue drawn-in line shows my route.

Start to #1 Take a compass bearing to get the direction of the 1st control. Scramble up the rocks. Note that keeping to the ridgeline leads to the hilltop and the control is about 50m beyond that. I do that until seeing the rocks before the hilltop then slip around the side of the hill to avoid extra climb. I see the gully coming up on the right and know that the control is just above that.

#1 to #2 Follow the ridgeline until seeing the large cliff slightly to the right. The control is at the base of the cliff.

#2 to #3 Another control up the ridgeline. Scramble through the rocks out of the control then follow the ridge until spotting the rocky ground ahead. Veer left into the control.

#3 to #4

#5 to #6 Scramble down rocks to the track and follow to the end, cross the open area keeping on the same line to the second line of rocks. Drinks here, have a drink if needed.

Take a compass bearing to get direction of next control, veer slightly right of the direct bearing so as to hit the track above the junction. Take the right hand track but get off it straight away so as not to go past the control, then compass bearing to first line of rocks where the control is between the small rock faces.

#6 to #7

#4 to #5

#7 to #8

This leg involves scrambling downhill through a rocky area and fighting your way through green. Find the easiest way down through the rocks and through the green but keep looking at the compass so as not to get too far off line. Aim to hit the track to the left of the rocky area. Once reaching the track turn right and when reaching the rocks scramble up above the first two lines of rock to a small termite mound above the second line.

An easy control but I make a mistake by switching off mentally on a track run. Out to the track, I intend to follow the track until the rocky area then left into the control. By daydreaming and not concentrating I run too far down the track and then realising my mistake I compound it by turning back too far right. I have to turn left when reaching the rocks to find the control. This mistake was caused by thinking it was too easy and not keeping in touch with the map.

36 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

Head back out to the clearing in the general direction of the next control. Follow the clearing up to the top of the hill to the track junction. From here take a careful bearing towards the control. I hit it OK but, if you miss it, relocate from the shape of the gully below.

Finland’s Liisa Veijalainen voted into Hall of Fame

S O-SPY

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10-year age classes

he one and only advantage of getting older is that every now and then you can move up an age class and dodge all those younger and more sprightly orienteers who have been beating you for some years. Alas, the hopes of one Victorian were dashed when the new OV age classes were published.

ome will remember when Liisa Veijalainen (now Peltola) visited Australia in the 1970s to compete and participate in training clinics for our rising stars. In the days when only Long Distance and Relay medals were to be won at World Championships, and usually only every two years, Liisa won Long Distance gold in 1976 with silver in 1978 & 1979, and Relay gold in 1972, 1978 & 1979, with silver in 1976 & 1981.

I used to think that O was nifty But then, alas, my age hit fifty A tragic thing did come to pass OV has killed my new age class I’d hoped that courses would get shorter And I could run against my daughter I’d like to run on shorter maps Not against those rather fit young chaps Still at least I’m healthy and alive I’ll just pretend I’m 45!

SPORTident maintenance

D #8 to #9 This control could be tricky if the broken fence just past the control is not too obvious. Some broken fences are just fence posts or wire along the ground and easy to miss. Fortunately this broken fence is easy to see. I take a compass bearing and try to hit the fence to the right of the control, I keep all the rocky ground on the left. I actually see the rock face as soon as I reach the fence, so only a slight turn left to the control.

#9 to #10 A compass bearing to get the general direction of the control.

I go around the right of the green but slow down into the control as the thicket is hard to see and the vegetation is thicker than I imagine. I think I can relocate off the track beyond the control if I miss it but fortunately I find it OK.

#10 to #11 to Finish A simple track run.

The course was a moderate standard and very suitable for Division C of the Sydney Metro League. Mitchell Park is one of the few areas close to Sydney where you can run through the bush easily. I hope the above helps orienteers who are new to bush Orienteering to get out into the bush and give it a go. The joys and challenges of bush Orienteering are far greater than running around the streets.

ID YOU KNOW THAT Colin Price at aussieogear.com has been the SPORTident agent in Australia for 4+ years but he still finds people are not aware of this and, more importantly, that he is here to help repair and service the units. Colin says, “While I am not a computer technician I am able to change batteries, beepers and LCD’s. More complex things I run by SPORTident to find out the options.”

B

Liisa Veijalainen at WOC 1979.

Photo: Michael Hubbert

Now, as Liisa Peltola, she has been inducted into the Finnish sports Hall of Fame.

And the World Orienteering Championships return to Finland for the fourth time in July this year.

Off-beat Comedy

ritish comedian, Jack Dee, has written his memoirs Thanks For Nothing which he modestly dedicated to himself “Without whom none of this would have been possible”.

Liisa Peltola receiving her award.

Photo: Suunnistaja.

JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 37

QUEENSLAND FAREWELL

Queensland farewells the Salonen family!

Queensland Jäähyväiset Salonen Perhe!

Sharon Withers (Ennogeroos, QLD)

After residing in Brisbane since January 2011, Ugly Gully Orienteers members (forever known as honorary Queenslanders) Mikko, Heidi, Inka 15, Matias 14 and Venla 10 will travel over 14,700 km to return to their homeland in Finland, in June.

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ikko Salonen has left his mark on Australia in more ways than one by contributing as a keynote speaker at the Orienteering Queensland Conference in 2011, which has inspired the current direction of OQ since this time. As well, Mikko shared his knowledge with a presentation at the Orienteering Australia Conference also in 2011. In April this year, Mikko (and other Elites Geoff Peck and Anna Sheldon) shared his knowledge at a Coaching Symposium ‘What Goes Through Their Mind?’.

Mikko Salonen at Easter 2013 38 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

As a final legacy to OQ, Mikko is a course setter and adviser for the 2013 Queensland Championships to be held 10 & 11 August at White Rock, near Ipswich, (Mikko is setting the Middle Distance with Rachel Effeney setting the Classic Long Distance).

See www.oq.asn.au/qldchamps.

The name Salonen appears many times up the top end of the results table for each of those in this talented family giving Queenslanders and the like some very steep competition! Results from the Oceania/World Cup Carnival NZ 2013 in January, in particular, were astounding - Mikko M40A - 1st twice and 2nd twice, Heidi W40A - 1st and 2nd, Matias M14A - 1st a whopping 4 times and 2nd, Inka in “Team Nameless” MWsml relay 2nd and 4th fastest time, Venla W12A - 1st, 3rd and 4th twice.

Queenslanders sure are familiar with the Salonen family’s results in many local events. Mikko & Matias are currently first on the OQ Orienteer of the Year leaderboard in Men’s Vets & Men’s Juniors respectively. Maybe they will just have to keep returning to Australia to see the year out in the results! On 21 October, 2012 at the Annual OQ Club Relay day at St. Paul’s School, Bald Hills, on Brisbane’s northside, Mikko was honoured with Best Male Result, Runner-up Best Performance at Queensland Championships and a 2nd in Senior Men in the Q League 2012.

September 2012, Inka and Matias represented Queensland at the Australian Schools Championships part of the “Beaches and Boulders” carnival in St. Helens and surrounds, Tasmania.

Inka in W16A, best placing 6th in the Australian Sprint, in the Queensland W16 Schools team placed 2nd in the Australian

Venla

Heidi

O Inka back row-first left - Matias back row-2nd from right.

Schools Relay behind New Zealand. Matias in M14A 2nd twice, 3rd and 4th, Venla in W10A 3rd and 4th.

Heidi shone in the recent Gold ‘n Ponds Easter 2013 carnival in Bendigo, Victoria with a 2nd place and 4th overall in W40A, also Venla jumped up an age group and gained a 1st, 2nd and 3rd overall in W12A. Mikko challenged himself further by competing in M21E and Matias jumped up to M16A. We hope the Salonen family have enjoyed their experience of living in Brisbane (lots of contrast to life in Finland, no doubt) and all their travels near and far with Orienteering. Surely they won’t miss the mossies and the flies, but they may miss the warm weather (sorry about all the rain we have had!) and the native animals, and then there are the dinky di Aussies! Some of you no doubt will bump into the Salonens at International events in time! The Salonen absence will be noticed! On behalf of the Queensland Orienteering Community - It’s been nice having you all here! All the best! - On ollut mukava ottaa teidät kaikki täällä!

Hyvää jatkoa!

rienteering is extremely popular in Finland compared to Australia, however, the most popular recreational sports and activities in Finland include floorball, Nordic walking, running and skiing. There are over 400 clubs within the Finnish Orienteering Federation - Suomen Suunnistusliitto, which caters for foot, ski and mountain bike orienteering (population of Finland approx.

5.4 million). By comparison, Australia (population 23 million) has just over 60 clubs! Finland, is the home of the International Orienteering Federation (IOF).

Mikko currently holds the position of Foot O Commission Chair and has previously held roles of President and General Manager of the Finnish Orienteering Federation. Mikko, who currently has a World Ranking of 354, Oceania region ranking of 34, has been orienteering since he was just 7 and has won several Finnish Championship medals; in his time in Australia Mikko has written a number of articles on Australian Orienteering for the Finnish Orienteering magazine, Suunnistaja.

Other Finnish folk currently orienteering in Queensland are Pekka Itavuo and Tuijja Laine-Itavuo and Jukka Erkkila.

This year’s two day Qld Championships will be held in the White Rock Conservation Area, situated 40 mins away from the Brisbane CBD. The terrain is predominantly sandstone on gully/spur with a variety of vegetation types.

Saturday’s Middle Distance event will be held on detailed hillsides with intricate contours while Sunday’s Long Distance event will be conducted in a mixture of different terrain types from open and thickly vegetated, flat areas to rocky gullies and hills.

Being close to both Brisbane and Ipswich, there are a range of accommodation options. However, Brisbane orienteers have offered to provide billeting and transport for interstate and regional competitors. Contact Barbara Pope on cjbspope@bigpond.com if you would like to take up this offer.

Start times on the Saturday will be from 1.30pm and from 9am on the Sunday.

Inka

Further information and online entries are available from http://oq.asn.au/qldchamps JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 39

MOUNTAIN BIKE ORIENTEERING

Victorian MTBO Champs National MTBO Series – Round 1 Blake Gordon

Chris Firman, not long back on the bike after shoulder surgery, was in fine form gaining selection to the Australian team for the World Champs. Photo: Shayne Hill.

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or the fourth time in five years the National MTBO Series made a great start in Central Victoria with three races in two days on the complex, dry track networks near Castlemaine and Rushworth. All States were represented with the dynamic NZL duo – Marquita Gelderman and Rob Garden – giving the events an international flavour.

Great autumn weather coupled with challenging courses set by the team of Peta Whitford, Peter Hill and Rob Edmonds, controlled by Toby Cooper, Paul Elam and Ted van Geldermalsen, greeted the riders. Attendances up by 20% in the Sprint and Middle Distance courses on Saturday added further evidence that the ‘3 races in 2 day’ formula works for MTBO. In the M21 Sprint race, Chris Firman (QLD) after finishing his JWOC MTB career with a great 5th last year, made a solid step-up from junior ranks to win the Victorian Sprint Championship at his first major elite race, especially after just recovering from a broken shoulder, by beating Alex Randall (VIC) by a minute with Ricky Thackray (WA) a further 50 seconds away in third place. Kiwi Champion Marquita Gelderman took out the W21 by 1 min 27 seconds from Melbourne’s Carolyn Jackson, making a comeback to elite MTBO. With several juniors moving up to M21 in 2013, Tassy Tom Goddard smoked around the M-20 course to win convincingly from Victorians Angus Robinson and Tim Jackson. The Women’s Masters were dominated by Victorians with Heather Leslie (W50), Kathy Liley (W60), Dale Ann Gordon (W70) and Joyce Rowlands (W80) winning by convincing margins.

Only Carolyn Mathews (NSW) in W40 took the medal over Victorians Julie Sunley and Monica Dickson. Encouraging first-up results from several new Victorian men saw Jack Wigney (M-12) and Tom Maher (M-14) win while Eddy Prentice (NSW) took out honours in M-16. The Men’s Masters medals were evenly shared with M40 Dion Keech (VIC), M50 Duncan Sullivan (WA), M60 Peter Cusworth (VIC), and M70 Graham Fowler (NSW) scoring narrow wins in their respective classes.

Then competitors loaded up their bikes for the 15-minute drive across town to the “Hills UpandDown” map to contest the Middle Distance race. Alex Randall (M21) had a ‘dream ride’ in this terrain, dominated by winding single tracks and 40 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

indistinct fire trails, to post a convincing 6 minute victory over Ricky Thackray with Tasmania’s Oscar Phillips in third. Carolyn Jackson cut Marquita’s winning W21 margin to 53 seconds while Tom Goddard continued his great form to post his second win of the day from Karl Withers (QLD) and promising Angus Robinson (VIC) 4 minutes behind in third place.

In the Women’s Masters classes Carolyn Matthews (W40) lead another parade of Victorian winners – Heather Leslie (W50), Kathy Liley (W60), Dale Ann Gordon (W60) and Joyce Rowlands (W80). Men’s Masters victories were again shared between States with M40 Rob Garden (NZL), M50 Malcolm Roberts (NSW), M60 Rick Armstrong (VIC), M70 Blake Gordon (VIC) and M80 Graeme Cadman (VIC).

Sunday’s Long Distance event at Rushworth’s Balaclava Hill saw MTBO return to the flat, gold-mining terrain near the birthplace of Nagambie’s superstar “Black Caviar”. When Ted van Geldermalsen (Event Adviser) was asked what was the best way to cope with the courses he said, “Ride Fast”. And that is exactly what they did! Alex Randall (M21) and Tom Goddard (M-20) pulled away from their rivals over the long courses; Carolyn Jackson (W21) rode strongly to post a welldeserved win over Marquita Gelderman.

David West (NSW) showing off his new wooden bike – yes... that’s right, wooden.

A beautiful piece of work, and apparently, rides very well too. Photo: Bill Vandendool

Carolyn Cusworth.

Photo: Shayne Hill.

Carolyn Matthews winning W40. Photo: Shayne Hill.

Alex Randall heading off from the Long start with Tim Jackson.

Photo: Bill Vandendool

In the Masters classes the time margins increased, but the results were the same with Carolyn Matthews (W40), Kathy Liley (W60), Dale Ann Gordon (W70), and Joyce Rowlands (W80) each winning their third gold medal of the weekend.

Peta Whitford (W50) won her first gold from Carolyn Cusworth (VIC) and Norah Skilton (QLD). Victoria’s up and coming M-16 Declan Dickson scored his second gold medal. The Men’s Masters classes saw the fast riders come to the front with M40 Richard Eisner, M50 Duncan Sullivan (WA), M60 Lee Merchant (SA), M70 Keith Wade (VIC) and M80 Graeme Cadman taking medals.

Hills Upsan Downs middle distance map at Castlemaine, Course 4 – 1:15,000. 10m contours

These riders are at control #33 as shown on the above map, and trying to work out how to get to #39. It required quite a bit of careful map reading!!

Photo: Shayne Hill.

Murray Withers (Qld). Photo: Shayne Hill.

JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 41

MOUNTAIN BIKE ORIENTEERING

Australian MTBO team selections 2013 WORLD MTBO CHAMPS – Rakvere, Estonia – August 26-31

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he Victorian Championships this year doubled as selection trials and the following riders have been selected to represent Australia at the World MTBO Championships.

Junior Men: Tom Goddard (TAS), Angus Robinson (VIC), Karl Withers (QLD).

Alex Randall (Vic)

Chris Firman (Qld)

Tom Goddard (Tas)

Ricky Thackray (WA)

Karl Withers (Qld)

Carolyn Jackson (Vic)

Angus Robinson (Vic)

Callum Fagg (Tas)

Elite Men: Callum Fagg (TAS), Chris Firman (QLD), Alex Randall (VIC) & Ricky Thackray (WA).

Elite Women: Carolyn Jackson (VIC).

Coach: Ian Dalton (WA).

There are two newcomers to international mountain biking.

Yr 12 student Angus Robinson will be debuting in the Juniors after showing significant improvement in fitness and navigation over the last year. 24 year-old Tasmanian Callum Fagg joins a unique group of orienteers who have raced for Australia both on foot and bike, as he was also in a JWOC foot Orienteering team. Over the last few years he has shone in the road racing scene.

Chris Firman, after finishing his JWOC MTB career with a great 5th last year, will be racing in elites at WMTBOC for the first time. He did well to win the Victorian Sprint Championship at his first major elite race, especially after just recovering from a broken shoulder. Alex Randall won the other two elite Victorian titles and has been riding strongly in long enduro races. Ricky Thackray rode consistently at the trials and is looking forward to his second WMTBOC. Tom Goddard rode brilliantly to win all three Victorian M20 titles, and is currently ranked no 5 in the National U23 crosscountry list. He is determined to do well in his third and final JWMTBO championships. Karl Withers was 2nd in the Middle Distance and 3rd in the Sprint and is heading off to his second Worlds. Carolyn Jackson defeated arch rival Marquita Gelderman (NZ) in the Long Distance Victorian title and was a close second in the other two events. Carolyn is faster than ever before and has been racing sensationally in enduro races, so selectors had no qualms in sending her to battle the world’s best in Estonia.

NZ MTBO Carnival

Sand based pine plantation with tracks and forest roads - 50 minutes NW of Auckland City.

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Thursday Jan 9th - AUS/NZ Challenge Classic Distance and Day 4 of Multiday -Maramarua Forest Hilly to undulating clay based plantation forest with MTB track network and forest roads about one hour drive on the way south of Auckland.

Including AUS / NZ MTBO Challenge ur Kiwi MTBO friends are preparing a week-long MTBO carnival for next January, this time in the North Island, and will include an Aus/NZ Challenge. Around 50 Aussies headed over in 2012 and we expect a similar number will want to experience this fantastic combination of events in some amazing mountain biking areas. The program includes: Saturday Jan 4th - Day 1 of Multiday - Marquita’s Garden 45 minutes NW of Auckland City. Hilly plantation forest with intricate MTB track network north-west of Auckland. Sand based forest near the rugged west coast.

Sunday Jan 5th - Day 2 of Multiday - Riverhead Forest 25 minutes NW of Auckland City. Hilly to undulating clay based plantation forest with intricate MTB track network and forest roads on the northern outskirts of Auckland.

Tuesday Jan 7th - AUS/NZ Challenge Middle Distance and Day 3 of Multiday - Hedley Road 42 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

Friday Jan 10th - AUS/NZ Challenge Sprint - Rotorua You’re into mountain bike mecca with a flat out fun Sprint in the Rotorua area! Approx 3 hours drive south from Auckland.

Saturday Jan 11th - Day 5 of Multiday - Rotorua Forest.

Explore the far reaches of Rotorua’s Whaka Forest! Hilly and undulating with some flattish parts - but be prepared for some wickedly good single track!

More details will be available in coming months via the carnival website – www.mtbocarnival.com Team Manager?

At present we are asking for expressions of interest for an Australian Team Manager for the trip. Please contact Kay Haarsma if you can help – kayhaarsma@hotmail.com

REVIEW

Forest Challenge Reviewed by Maggie Jones

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orest Challenge was designed by UK orienteer Alan Brown, and raises funds for The Woodland Trust. So far, so worthy – but the question is – is it any fun?

A board game with 4 square panels which can be linked in any combination, the aim of the game is to set a course and race around it before your competitors. Just like the real thing, reading the symbols on the map, and choosing a sensible route choice are critical to winning.

Moving around the board by way of throwing a dice, players have to make their way from control to control, recording their progress on a punch card, answering questions at the control site and using the sneaky advantage cards to get ahead of opponents. The game is pretty fast paced, and very enjoyable. You can set out any dastardly course you choose, like a Classic with long legs around impassable features, a Sprint with plenty of controls or even a Score course. There are some nice touches that only a real orienteer would appreciate – the ‘spotting a control’ rule where a player can move directly to their control if another is standing right by it, and a limited allowance for ‘following’. Play on the set boards, or draw your own on the template provided.

Forest Challenge is designed by an Orienteering enthusiast so it may never take off into Mattel’s stable of board games, but for Orienteering types it is a refreshing way to spend a wet afternoon. And it’s great for junior training evenings!

The game costs $AUD 23.00 (price includes airmail delivery from the UK). To order your copy of the game, or for more information, email legend@ngoc.org.uk

JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 43

LETTERS

Letters

The Australian Orienteer welcomes letters. Preference will be given to letters which are concise and which make positive points. The editor reserves the right to edit letters, particularly ones which are longer than 300 words.

The 2013 Australia - New Zealand Challenge

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K, I have to confess, it was all my fault that Australia lost the ANZ Challenge this year. President Trewin laid it all bare in his report; it was those hopeless M50’s getting beaten by 15 seconds in the Long Distance event that was the ruination of the Oz effort in NZ this year. No matter that after the Sprint and Middle Distance events it was one-all in the M50’s, with the Kiwi’s up by an aggregate of one-and-a-half minutes on total times to that point. And no matter that we whipped them by 10 minutes in the Relay that was the final event in the Challenge. It was those 15 seconds in the Long Distance event, the third of the Challenge, after two hours of racing around a vertical hillside, that did us in.

And where did those lost 15 seconds comes from? No, it wasn’t the 10 minutes of actual navigation mistakes I made out in the forest. It was just one control, three from the end, where it all went wrong. Placed in the middle of a large track, right after a long run across some fields. Who would have thought that the Kiwi’s would be so sneaky as to place a control in the middle of a track?! So I read my control description as siting it at the bottom of an embankment, at the edge of the said track. Those 20 seconds I spent peering over the edge of the embankment, trying to spot the control beneath me, before I turned around and saw it right there behind me, that was what did it! The entire ANZ Challenge gone up in smoke. You’ll know now not to include those M50’s next time around in Tassie!

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Armchair Trail O

am writing to congratulate you, first of all, on the excellent standard of our magazine these days. I am no longer orienteering, due to problems with my spine and feet, and, as you can imagine, I miss my much loved sport enormously.

When “The Australian Orienteer” arrives, I pore over all the maps, and the excellent articles, and especially enjoy the “Spot the Difference” puzzle. And I have just finished pitting my wits in the Trail-O article, with great pleasure. So I am wondering if it could be possible to have more of the same, but in the form of an armchair test Trail-O. I imagine many people in my situation would enjoy it, and also, I think, more active orienteers. Thank you for much enjoyment.

Margaret Craig (Garingal Orienteers, NSW)

Membership Surge in South Australia

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s usual I ordered a few extra magazines in March and 10 P&P copies but our OSA membership has experienced a leap forward – mostly as a result of our country clubs registering their financial members at the last possible minute and well after my order for the issue. Therefore please send 18 copies of the March issue at full price so that we can provide our new members with the latest copy of the national magazine (which was very enjoyable thank you).

I’m just sorry that work commitments have prevented me from attending Easter events. Trust you’ve thoroughly enjoyed them and I’m looking forward to the account of what I missed, midyear and still have magazines for promotion.

Jennie Bourne

Michael Burton (Big Foot Orienteers, NSW)

ORI E NTEERING PUB LICATIONS IOF Publications

Australian Publications

International Specifications for‑Orienteering Maps . . . . . . . . . . $11.00 Competition rules for IOF events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $11.00 Control Descriptions. . . . . . . . . . . . $11.00 Simple Maps for Orienteering . . . . $11.00 Trail Orienteering (BOF book) . . . . . $30.00 Trail Orienteering (booklet). . . . . . . . $8.25 Trail O (leaflet) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $0.70

Elementary Orienteering Instructors‑Manual. . . . . . . . . . . . . $13.20 Level 1 Coaching Manual. . . . . . . . $22.00 Level 1 Coaching Syllabus . . . . . . . . $3.90 Level 2 Coaching Syllabus . . . . . . . . $4.40 Level 3 Coaching Syllabus . . . . . . . . $4.40 Among the Best Orienteers (video).$19.75 Sponsorship & Advertising, 1996 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . available from states Club Guide, available on disc.

Prices include GST and postage within Australia for single copies.

Prices for bulk orders available on request. Orders should be addressed to Orienteering Australia, PO Box 284 Mitchell BC 2911, with cheques made payable to Orienteering Australia. Email: orienteering@netspeed.com.au 44 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

FOR STOCKISTS CALL 1800 209 999

www.victorinox.com FOR STOCKISTS CALL 1800 209 999

www.victorinox.com VICTORINOX AWARD

The Victorinox Award goes to Michael Burton for his confession of guilt on this page.

Michael will receive a Victorinox Handyman which includes 24 tools and features – retail value $119.

HEALTH

The Fountain of Youth Barry Daniel

Dr Klentze qualified in medicine at the University of Munich in Germany. Some highlights of his career comprise training as a specialist in neurochemistry, gynaecology and obstetrics, psychiatry/psychotherapy, endocrinology and diabetology. He was Secretary General of the European Society of Preventive, Regenerative and Anti-Ageing Medicine from 2003-2009.

T

he good doctor is a walking advertisement for the successful management of ageing, being a robust and handsome man of 65 who seems to radiate good health. I asked Dr Klentze if this getting old business was inevitable. Sadly, he said it was. Nature designed us to reproduce and then die. But the good news is that we can manage ageing to live longer, with more vitality and indeed happiness, by making some relatively simple behavioural choices. It all starts with the brain.

immunity and mental capacity. Exercise isn’t about being ripped or sexy, it’s simply a necessary component of functioning as a human being. Most of our health conditions are diseases of sloth.

If you are tired or lacking in energy, barring a specific condition or hormonal imbalance, it’s likely you aren’t active enough.

4. Manage stress The common “symptoms” of ageing – high blood pressure, heart disease, adrenal fatigue, wrinkles, loss of sex drive, loss of energy, poor memory – are not really symptoms of ageing at all. They’re symptoms of stress and poor lifestyle choices. Do everything you can to eliminate every type of stress in your life.

5. Think young. Stay connected Your life is a precious gift, but “thinking young” is more than staying positive and being interested in current trends and world events. As long as you are alive and taking every intelligent step to get the most from your body and your life, you are young. Living itself is the ultimate Fountain of Youth. Observe the play and curiosity of children and don’t lose that spirit.

6. Get enough rest Quality sleep is critical to cell repair and regeneration and can drastically affect your lifespan and your wellbeing. Unfortunately many get less than the necessary eight hours of quality sleep a night

7. Take prudent supplementation

The very ideas we have about ourselves, the concepts we carry in our minds, dictate our behaviours. Think young, optimistically and positively and you will start to become exactly those things by behaving that way. Every day we make choices about how we age: in particular about activity, diet, social engagement, loving and purpose. These things are not genetically pre-set but are malleable and subject to our control. All we have to do is take charge of ageing, don’t just lie down and let it sweep over us.

Like it or not, our food supply is not always sufficient for providing all the available tools to fight oxidation and stress or to reduce our risk of diseases. Do your best to provide your body with the freshest, most nutritious food you can. But you can augment this with prudent supplementation. A powerful antioxidant multivitamin and a fish oil supplement are worthwhile.

I asked what we have to do to stay as young and happy as possible despite the passing years. Could he give me a short list of simple rules to capture this Fountain of Youth? Here’s what he recommended:

For more see www.klentze.com

1. Eliminate self-destructive behaviours This is the first step in preventing disease and meeting your later years with vitality and good health. The health toll of destructive behaviours such as smoking and excessive eating and drinking does not necessarily manifest for many years, but you must stop all these immediately.

2. Eat well 70% of health derives from what you put in your body; exercise and stress comprise the rest of the equation. The food you select to fuel your body is the single most powerful choice you’ll ever make for your health.

As we age, our cells become more vulnerable. The best thing you can do is fuel your body with whole, fresh, nutritionally-dense food. Eat the right fats, plenty of quality and clean protein, and copious organic vegetables. Avoid anything processed, fried, packaged, reconstituted, refined, or high in worthless carbohydrates. Cut down on calories overall; eat lots of small meals each day and drink plenty of water.

3. Exercise Much of “ageing” is essentially tissue wasting. The phrase “Use it or lose it” is true. Your muscles weaken, your bones shed their valuable osseous material – which also compromises your

In Thailand on a bicycle holiday in January this year, former editor of The Australian Orienteer, Ian Baker (Vic.) got to know journalist Barry Daniel, a friend of Doctor Michael Klentze.

Barry Daniel

TRAIL-O CORNER ANSWER – courtesy Brian Parker - The problem displays good Trail-O practice in that all the flags are relevant to the control feature which, in this case, is an earth slope, the western of an opposite facing pair. Flags B and E are on the ridge between the earth slopes, so are ruled out by the description ‘foot’. Flags A and C are at the foot of the eastern slope and are also ruled out. Flag D is the only one at the foot of the western slope so must be the answer.

But if the standard of the problem were set at elite level, there is the possibility of none of the flags being correct, so let’s examine this flag position in more careful detail. The centre of the circle on the map is at the foot of the slope on the edge of the vegetation change. The flag is consistent with both of these parameters. But the slope foot and vegetation change do not give a unique position so we need more fixing. The line of sight from the viewing point to the flags on the map is a bit to the right of the pond edge (although you have to be careful with pond edges as they are variable throughout the seasons) and this agrees with the picture. So the flag is at or close to the centre of the circle and must be correct for elite competition also.

JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 45

TRAIL-O

TRAIL-O CORNER L

ast year we introduced the fundamentals of Trail-O with an article by Brian Parker of the IOF Trail Orienteering Commission. Here we commence a series where we ask you, the reader, to find the solution to a Trail-O control using the information contained within a photo, a map section and the control description.

Essentially this is armchair Orienteering using Trail-O techniques. The photo shows five possible locations for the flag. From left to right the positions are identified by the letters A to E. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to identify which location is best described by the map section and control description. The decision point is marked by the purple cross on the track. The photo and map section are of Warrandyte Garden in Melbourne. You will find the answer on page 45.

We’re Having a Sale!

LATE N EW S WORLD GAMES – Cali, Colombia, 25 July to 4 August

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ew Zealand qualified for the single team place allotted to Oceania at the World Games in Colombia, but Australia was offered one Women’s place on the basis of two medals won at the previous World Games 2009 in Chinese Taipei.

Kathryn Preston has been chosen to represent Australia in Colombia later this year.

Celebrating 40 years in 2013

Visit our new website

www.osoa.com.au Compasses and other gear massively reduced End of line stock, overstocks and clearance lines Paypal and credit cards accepted

Kathryn Preston will be Australia’s only representative at the World Games in Colombia this year.

Photo: John Harding.

46 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2013

Legendary mail order service!

PH OSoA (03) 9017 4835, FX OSoA (03) 9388 1916 Email info@osoa.com.au

TOP EVENTS July 19-26

2013 June 29July 6 July 7-14

July 20-26

25 July – 4 August a u s tr a l i a n

MTBO

July 27-28

c ha m p i ons h ips

2013

Gympie, Qld

July 28Aug 3 July 27Aug 1 Aug 3-10

Aug 26-31

JWOC 2013 Hradec Králové, Czech Republic www.jwoc2013.cz WOC2013 Vuokkati, Finland www.woc2013.fi O-Ringen 2013 Boden, Lapland, Sweden www.oringen.se 2013 World Games Cali, Colombia worldgames2013.com.co AUS MTBO Championships Gympie, Qld www.ausmtbochamps.com Moray 2013 Scottish 6 Days www.scottish6days.com/2013/ Five days of Apennines 2013 Val Trebbia, Liguria (nr Genoa), Italy www.5days2013.it WMOC 2013 Sestriere, Piedmont, Italy, www.wmoc2013.it World MTBO Champs Junior World MTBO Champs Rakvere, Lääne-Viru, Estonia www.orienteerumine.ee/mtbo2013

Sept 28Oct 6

AUS Championships Carnival ACT www.auschamps2013.com Oct 9-13 World Masters MTBO Champs Costa Alentejana, Portugal www.wmmtboc2013.fpo.pt/ Nov 9-10 Venice City Race 2013 (check dates for Venezia, Italy www.orivenezia.it Acqua Alta)

SOW 2014, Swiss O Week Zermatt, Switzerland www.swiss-o-week.ch July 21-27 JWOC 2014 Borovetz, Bulgaria www.jwoc2014.bg Aug 24-31 WMTBOC, JWMTBOC & WMMTBOC Bialystok Poland www.wmtboc2014.pl Sept 27Karrak Karnival, AUS Champs Oct 5 Carnival 2014, West Australia wa.orienteering.asn.au/karrak-karnival Oct 11-19 Race the Castles 2014 Scotland www.racethecastles.com Nov 1-8 WMOC 2014 Porto Alegre, Brazil www.wmoc2014.org.br/ Nov 8 - 9 Venice City Race 2014 (check dates for Venezia, Italy Acqua Alta) www.orivenezia.it 2015 Jan 3-11 April 3-6 Dates tba Aug 1-7

July 25 Aug 1 Dates tba Dates tba

Oceania Championships 2015 & World Cup, Tasmania Australian 3 Days Carnival 2015 South Australia JWOC 2015 Norway WOC 2015 Inverness, Scotland WMOC 2015 Gothenburg, Sweden www.wmoc2015sweden.se WMTBOC, JWMTBOC 2015 Czech Republic AUS Championships Carnival 2015 Victoria

Nov 9, 10, 11 Cal O’rie NEW DATES New Caledonia clubconvergence@lagoon.nc Dec 27-31 Xmas 5-Days NSW

Dec 30Jan 4

Big 5 O Week, South Africa Kaapsehoop, Mpumalanga Province South Africa. www.bigfive-o.co.za/

Jan 4-11

NZ MTBO Carnival/A-NZ Challenge Nth Island NZ mtbocarnival.com/ Australian 3 Days Carnival 2014 Lithgow/Mudgee, NSW onsw.asn.au/easter2014 AUS & Oceania MTBO Championships, Alice Springs, NT www.ausmtbochamps.com WOC 2014 Trentino, Italy www.woc-wtoc2014.com O-Ringen 2014 50th Anniversary Rinkaby, Skåne, Sweden. www.oringen.se

2014

6 Races & 2 Competitions over 8 days in New Zealand 2014!

Ride on a selection of maps that will take you on a journey from Auckland’s stunning west coast pine forests down to the cultural heart of New Zealand in Rotorua’s thermal wonderland.

This event will incorporate the 2014 A-NZ MTBO Challenge with the results on Jan 7, 9 and 10 contributing to the scores to decide the winner of the Challenge banner.

In addition to the Challenge, there will also be an overall individual winner decided by the accumulated times for five specified events!

April 18 - 21

The provisional dates and venues are set out below and are subject to landowner approval.

Saturday Jan 4th Day 1 of Multiday - Marquita’s Garden 45 minutes NW of Auckland City. Hilly plantation forest with intricate mtb track network north-west of Auckland.

Sand based forest near the rugged west coast.

Sunday Jan 5th Day 2 of Multiday - Riverhead Forest 25 minutes NW of Auckland City Hilly to undulating clay based plantation forest with intricate mtb track network and forest roads on the northern outskirts of Auckland.

au s t r al i an & o ce a n ia

Tuesday Jan 7th A/NZ Challenge Middle distance and Day 3 of Multiday - Hedley Road

MTBO Sand based pine plantation with tracks and forest roads 50 minutes NW of Auckland City.

Thursday Jan 9th A/NZ Challenge Classic distance and Day 4 of multiday Maramarua Forest

June 7-9

Hilly to undulating clay based plantation forest with mtb track network and forest roads about an hours drive on the way south of Auckland.

Friday Jan 10th A/NZ Challenge Sprint - Rotorua

c ha m p i ons h ips

You’re into mountain bike mecca with a flat out fun sprint in the Rotorua area! Approx 3 hours drive south from Auckland.

Saturday Jan 11th Day 5 of Multiday - Rotorua Forest.

2014

Alice Springs, NT

Explore the far reaches of Rotorua’s Whaka Forest! Hilly and undulating with some flattish parts - but be prepared for some wickedly good single track!

AUCKLAND MARAMARUA ROTORUA

The event will be run under the AUS/NZL MTBO Challenge Rules.

The best entry and exit point to this event for overseas competitiors is through Auckland Airport. If you need to hire a bike for the carnival there are several companies in Auckland and Rotorua that hire bikes.

Event contact: rgmg@xtra.co.nz

July 5-13

For those keen to explore more mountain bike trails during the rest days there are lots of places in Auckland and around Rotorua and Taupo. See the website for links.

July 19-25

JUNE 2013 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 47

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