O-SPY

Musical orienteer

O-SPY

With everyone in self isolation, hermits have become irrelevant

Orienteers are unique

Recently in New Zealand, Wellington hosted the nationals in the Manawatū. It was fantastic to have our national event take place despite a year full of uncertainty. This was the thirty‑ seventh National championships I have attended across fifteen different sports, and my first for Orienteering. Over the last thirty years, I’ve been to national championships from Whangarei to Queenstown. Until last weekend, I had never been to a national event where people have not had to be reminded to remove their rubbish, dispose of it properly or to take rubbish home. When we left the forest areas it was free of any rubbish and there was no sign that an event had taken place. No reminders were necessary – wouldn’t it be great if all Kiwis cared this much? After the Middle Distance event I left my jacket next to one of the tents at the end of the day. I was not concerned about leaving it behind. I had confidence it would be waiting at the event centre the following day ‑– and it was. Unlike other events, it didn’t cross my mind that someone might have walked off with it. These things may seem small and insignificant, but I feel it says a lot about orienteers and the general nature of people in our sport.

Christo Peters (ONZ General Manager)

New Sport for Olympics confirmed

While there are serious doubts emerging about whether the 2021 Tokyo Olympics will go ahead, a new sport has been confirmed for the Paris Olympics 2024.

No – it’s not Orienteering. It’s Breakdancing.

Paris Games chief Tony Estanguet said: “The inclusion of Breakdancing at the Olympics may be surprising but organizers were drawn to the sport’s potential to attract a younger fan base and grow the Olympic audience in the internet age. It’s a sport that is widely watched on all digital platforms, widely consumed by young people. It’s very impressive technically and physically, what these athletes manage to do, and that’s why we were attracted to this sport. The feedback has been very good.” Breakdancing was one of four new sports to win a spot at the Games in Paris — alongside surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing — after the International Olympic Committee ratified their inclusion earlier last year. Surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing were scheduled to make their Olympic debut at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which have been moved to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. “We want to take sport to the youth,” IOC President Thomas Bach said in

A still image from Pat Jaffe’s official video of Eldorado.

One of the things we like about the Orienteering community is that many of them have other talents. Some of you will know that Pat Jaffe (patjaffe.com), WOC representative and OV e‑bulletin editor, is also a well credentialed jazz pianist. He has already launched his debut album ‑ Eldorado ‑ which includes a tribute to the late Hannah Goddard, a track that recently won a composition prize. Pat’s stunning debut release Eldorado sits somewhere at the midpoint between jazz and chamber music. Recorded in Reykjavík, the album features the stellar Icelandic chamber ensemble, Siggi String Quartet. Pat was the recipient of the 2020 Allan Zavod Performers’ Award, has recorded with the Monash Art Ensemble and the Jonathan Cooper Quintet, and recently has been working on a collaboration with Academy Award winning singer‑songwriter Markéta Irglová. The album cover features stunning photography by Krystal Neumann.

2016, when skateboarding, surfing and sport climbing were added to the program for Tokyo 2020 along with baseball, softball and karate. “With the many options that young people have, we cannot expect anymore that they will come automatically to us.” The inclusion of these sports is a testament to how extreme sports — which had previously been seen by some as pursuits for rebels and thrill seekers — have been moving toward the mainstream spotlight for the past several decades.

Pat at WOC in 2019.

Christmas “donut” orienteering in the West

Orienteering WA has an annual Christmas tradition of a “map with a twist”. Most often this has been organised by Noel Schoknecht, who is famous (or is that notorious?) for his imaginative distortions of the map. This year his idea, quite appropriately, was inspired by COVID. After Victoria controlled its outbreak in spectacular style, the story line was about “donut days”. This gave birth to the donut map, with six concentric rings all rotated by different degrees ‑ with only the central one, including the Start, oriented to north. In his briefing Noel said, “The organiser accepts no responsibility for map accuracy, control placement, or your enjoyment, but Merry Christmas to all orienteers anyway.” There was a time limit of one hour to visit as many controls as possible. How quickly can you decide the best route to reach them all?

from OWA e-bulletin Christmas 2020 Master map.

Eye Test

Iremember going into the opticians near home about 10 years ago. They weren’t as advanced and technical back then as they are today. The optician sat me at a chair and said to have a look in this big machine and to tell him what I could see? I told him “I can see closed pubs, face masks, shortages of toilet paper and a Chinese bloke eating a dead bat”! Well done he said, “You don’t need glasses, you’ve got 2020 vision”.

Christmas 2020 Donut map.

Forests

Tree planting is a brilliant solution to tackle climate change and protect biodiversity, but the wrong tree in the wrong place can do more harm than good, say experts at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK. Forests are essential to life on Earth. They provide a home to three‑quarters of the world’s plants and animals, soak up carbon dioxide, and provide food, fuels and medicines. But they’re fast disappearing; an area about the size of Denmark of pristine tropical forest is lost every year. “Planting the right trees in the right place must be a top priority for all nations as we face a crucial decade for ensuring the future of our planet,” said Dr Paul Smith, a researcher on the study and secretary general of conservation charity Botanic Gardens International in Kew. UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has said he is aiming to plant 30,000 hectares (300 sq km) of new forest a year across the UK by the end of this parliament. And, an African‑ led movement to plant a 5,000‑mile (8,048km) forest wall to fight the climate crisis is set to become the largest living structure on Earth, three times the size of the Great Barrier Reef. However, planting trees is highly complex, with no universal easy solution. “If you plant the wrong trees in the wrong place you could be doing more harm than good,” said lead researcher Dr Kate Hardwick of RGB Kew. All too often natural forests teeming with plants, animals and fungi are replaced by commercial plantations with row upon row of timber trees, which will be harvested after a few decades, she told BBC News. “What we’re trying to do is to encourage people, wherever possible, to try and recreate forests which are similar to the natural forests and which provide multiple benefits to people, the environment and to nature as well as capturing carbon.”

from BBC News

And lastly …….

AO magazine Editor, Mike Hubbert, is fast approaching 5,000 events chalked up since his first in 1969 (with 4986 at March 1st and 67,400 controls located). He reckons that COVID “stole” about 135 events so he could have been well past the 5,000 mark by now.

COVID cancellations

Well …….. “We’re not out of the woods yet” is probably an apt description for a sport that began as a forest activity.

The most recent major carnival to go was the Xmas 5 Days planned for the NSW Southern Highlands with some 350 entrants looking forward to their release from COVID hibernation. Prior to that was the 2020 Australian

Orienteering Championships Carnival

in Tasmania, now postponed to late September 2021 when (hopefully) we may all be able to travel outside our “bubbles”. And the 2021 Oceania Carnival in New Zealand was postponed to become Oceania 2022. In urban racing, the 2021 Melbourne City Race weekend has been pushed back to April 17/18. On the international scene, the 2021 World Masters Games in Japan, including Orienteering, was postponed to May 2022, and replaced by a WMOC event in Hungary in early August 2021. Whether that will go ahead remains to be seen. While

WOC in Czech Republic, JWOC in Turkey, WMTBOC & JWMTBOC in Finland, Swiss

O Week, O-Ringen, the 2021 Scottish 6 Days, and the California O Festival are probably in the same position. And the 2021 WMMTBOC scheduled for May in Slovenia has been moved to Portugal in October.

NOL Round 4 at Broulee Dunes

On the weekend of May 15 & 16, Broulee Dunes on the NSW south coast will host NOL Round 4 as well as NSW and ACT State League events. Courses for all orienteers will be offered – see Eventor for details. Saturday will see a Sprint at St Peter’s Anglican College, Broulee, in the morning followed by a Middle Distance (with chasing start for NOL competitors) at Broulee Dunes in the afternoon. Map Scale is 1:7500 with 2.5m contours. On Sunday at Broulee Dunes there will be a 3‑person Relay for NOL competitors and another Middle Distance for other orienteers. Broulee Dunes is a new map of a venue never previously used for orienteering. The map is typical south coast sand dune terrain which hugs the beach between Broulee and the Moruya airport. The vegetation is relatively slow and thick in places, but fast and open in others. The dunes get smaller and less distinct the further you are from the beach. There are a few tracks and a large creek running through the map. A recent bushfire has burnt through a section of the map, resulting in better visibility and faster running. Why come for the weekend? A new sand dune map; 3 events; NOL, NSW SL and ACT SL courses; very scenic; have a beach holiday at the same time :)