National Orienteering League 2023 report

BLAIR TREWIN

It was a big year for the NSW Stingers in the National Orienteering League (NOL) as they took three of the four titles on offer. The senior men swept to a comprehensive victory; whilst they did not have any of the three leading individuals, they had three strong results in most rounds, depth that no other team could match. Next behind them were the Tassie Foresters, achieving their best senior team result from a core of Brodie Nankervis, returning to his original home state this year, and Joseph Dickinson, and a rotating support cast.

Both the Stingers’ junior teams also won. The junior women were as dominant as possible, winning every round with three of the top four individuals. The junior men also had a useful lead for much of the season, but, failing to improve their own score with an under-strength team in the final round, they had to depend on the Canberra Cockatoos not winning in the last-round relay. Canberra were in contention after the first leg but the Southern Arrows took control thereafter, to ensure that the Stingers’ lead in the pointscore would not be overcome.

The one grade not won by the Stingers was the senior women. The Canberra Cockatoos had had their noses in front since a good Sydney Sprint Weekend in March, but the Southern Arrows stayed in touch and could have claimed the title had they won the final relay and the Cockatoos come third or worse. With both teams and the Victorian Vikings within three minutes of each other going into the last leg, such a result was within the range of possibilities, but Grace Crane’s dominant final leg made sure it wasn’t.

The senior women also had a close individual battle. It ended up as a straight contest between Cockatoos teammates Caitlin Young and Grace Crane, with whoever crossed the line in the final individual round set to be the individual winner. Young was able to do the necessary, with a deceptively comfortable margin in the end after coming second to Crane’s seventh, although they were only two minutes apart. Unusually, Young won the overall title without winning any race, and Crane only won one, although they had seven second places between them. The other wins went to Lizzie Ingham and Vanessa Round, who swept the start and end of the season respectively but did not run enough races for a full score, and Tara Melhuish, who won three of the four sprint rounds.

Patrick Jaffe always looked to have one hand on the title once it became clear that injury would cut short Aston Key’s season, and three wins out of four over the Easter weekend meant that he only needed a fourth place on the last weekend to make sure of overall honours. Although he lost a three-way sprint finish there to Brodie Nankervis and Angus Haines, Nankervis’s win was only able to get him second overall.

No junior man won more than two races in the season, but Sam Woolford got enough other results to keep the rest of the field at arm’s length. Second in the final event was enough to hold off David Stocks, who finished fast with wins in the last two rounds (and missed two scoring opportunities through being a planner for Easter). There were many scenarios for the final round for the junior women with seven going into it with a mathematical chance of winning, but Eszter Kocsik rendered those scenarios moot with a comprehensive race win, giving her the title ahead of Stingers teammate Erika Enderby.