OA NEWS
Orienteering Australia HALL of FAME The announcement and presentation of Orienteering Australia honours and awards took place at the Australian 3-Days. The following orienteers were announced as inductees to the Orienteering Australia Hall of Fame:
Athlete Division: Jo Allison, Carolyn Jackson and Adrian Jackson General Division: Michael Dowling and Rob Simson Membership of the Orienteering Australia Hall of Fame is the crowning achievement of a sporting career in Orienteering in Australia and represents the highest level of peer recognition for an individual’s contribution to Australian orienteering. The Orienteering Australia Hall of Fame recognises and promotes the outstanding sporting achievements of our athletes and officials to acknowledge the rich sporting heritage of Australian orienteering. It is an illustrious group of Australia’s most respected and celebrated orienteers that span the test of time. They are the best of the best, who through their achievements have made a significant contribution to our sporting history and have inspired others to achieve their potential in both sport and life.
Hall of Fame Athlete Division Carolyn Jackson (nee Hooper) (VIC)
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arolyn Jackson has represented Australia as both a mountain bike orienteer at the elite and masters level, and as a foot orienteer at the elite level.
Carolyn represented Australia as a foot orienteer at the World Orienteering Championships in 1976, 1978, 1979 and 1985 (in Britain, Norway, Finland and Australia) competing in Individual and Relay events on each occasion. Her best results were in 1978 when she was 23rd in the Individual event and the Australian team finished eighth in the Relay. During her early orienteering career, she won W21 twice at the Australian Championships, and also at the inaugural Pacific Orienteering Championships near Canberra.
When mountain bike orienteering was introduced to Australia, Carolyn took up this new sport and was a member of the Australian team at the World Championships in MTBO on seven occasions between 2002 and 2014. Her best results were at the inaugural Championships in France in 2002, when she was 16th in the Long Distance event and 15th in the Sprint, with the Australian team finishing fifth in the Relay. Her greatest international achievements were in the World Masters Championships in MTBO. Between 2012 and 2019, she won 15 gold medals, 5 silver medals and 2 bronze medals in the various events, plus 4 gold medals at a 2016 international event in Portugal, where she was coaching the Australian WOC team. In 2017, she held the number one position in the W60 World Masters MTBO Rankings. Of the seven ranking events she contested that year, she had three first place and four second place finishes.
Carolyn continues to be an active competitor in Orienteering in Australia. She is a regular competitor in State and National events in both FootO and MTBO and has won numerous Australian titles in MTBO, as well as the Australian MTBO Series on six occasions between 2013 and 2019. She has been a regular member of the Australian team for the Australia – New Zealand MTBO Challenge. Carolyn is one of the selectors for the Australian MTBO teams, was the coach for the team at the 2016 World Championships, and is a regular course planner for State and National level MTBO events. 38 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2022
Hall of Fame Athlete Division Jo Allison (ACT)
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o Allison was one of Australia’s top elite orienteers for over a decade, representing Australia at eight World Championships between 1997 and 2008, two Junior World Championships (1995 and 1996) and one World Games (2001). She was the first woman to represent Australia at eight World Championships.
Her best results in the World Championships were: • Long Distance: 23rd. 2004, Västerås, Sweden; • Middle Distance: 17th. 2008, Olomouc, Czech Republic; • Sprint: 28th. 2005, Aichi, Japan; • Relay: 4th. 2006, Aarhus, Denmark (the best ever result by an Australian team).
Jo has been a noted and highly reliable relay runner, often taking on the challenge of being the first leg runner. She was in the women’s relay team at seven of the eight World Championships she attended, with the teams finishing eighth or better at her last four Championships. Jo was one of the four members of the team to represent Australia at the 2001 World Games in Japan, the first time that Orienteering had been included in the Games. She finished 13th in the Individual race and the mixed-gender Relay team of four was a close fifth, 15 seconds behind third.
Her best results in the Junior World Championships were all in Gorova, Romania, in 1996, when she finished 15th in both the Long Distance and Middle Distance events and was in the Australian Relay team that finished 11th.
After retiring from international competition at the end of 2008 season to concentrate on having children, Jo returned to national orienteering in late 2013. She made a cameo appearance at the 2017 Oceania Championships in New Zealand winning the W21E class Long Distance final at age 40 and anchoring the Australian women’s Relay team to victory in the W21E class. She used those races to prepare for the 2017 World Masters Championships, winning the gold medal in W40 in the Long Distance event.
Jo Allison was one of the top female orienteers in Australia for over twenty years. She won her first National League individual series at age 19 years in 1995 and her fifth and last at age 41 years in 2017.
