The Australian Orienteer - December 2012

DECEMBER 2012

AUS Champs & Schools Carnival

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 a FISKARS BRANDS company. australia@fiskarsbrands.com

ORIENTEERING AUSTRALIA

The President’s Page

Blair Trewin

Blair Trewin during the Bicheno Sprint.

Photo: Clive Roper Photography

A

nother Australian orienteering season is over (more or less).

For many of us, the season culminated in the Australian Championships week, where there were many memorable performances, notably Grace Crane’s domination of the individual championships, and the closest team finish yet in the National League, where Victoria’s win over Queensland was not settled until the last few controls of the Relay. As they always do, the Tasmanians put on an excellent show, making use of some excellent (if sometimes tough) terrain – if anything went wrong I didn’t notice it – and deserve a lot of credit for all the hard work involved.

Many of the memorable performances during the week in Tasmania came from New Zealanders. We’ve become used in recent years to New Zealand dominating junior competition between our countries, and on the evidence of this year, that wave of junior talent is starting to filter through into the senior ranks too.

This has prompted us to do some thinking and find out more about what it is that New Zealand is doing which we’re not, something which has led us to have quite extensive discussions with key people in NZOF over the last few weeks. This has confirmed a lot of the thoughts that I mused about in the last issue, especially the contribution that having a junior team travelling to Australia every year makes – not only because it gives them experience of international competition long before they get to JWOC, but also because the existence of the team provides a major target for school-aged orienteers in New Zealand, providing a goal to work towards which supports a higher level of local competition.

At the grass-roots level, a lot of the important work is done by a small number of committed individuals – something which is also consistent with our experience on this side of the Tasman.

It has become increasingly apparent in the discussions we’ve had so far about our high performance programs that the lower steps of the development pathway, at the State and local levels, are absolutely critical – if only a trickle of talent is coming through from that level then a national high performance program doesn’t have a lot to work with.

We’ve had some very good junior clusters in particular parts of Australia over the years – the early/mid-1990s in the ACT and the mid/late-2000s in Queensland come to mind – and my vision is that we can develop clusters on that scale in every major Orienteering centre. One major program which has helped New Zealand’s development at that level has been a national camp every year for secondary-school aged orienteers which is open to all comers and has been very effective in building interest and commitment amongst the targeted age groups.

Moving away from the high performance area, whilst New Zealand’s membership has been steady, some of their clubs have grown to sizes which are very large by our standards. Hawkes Bay and Nelson have both achieved memberships near 300 in centres with populations on a par with, say, Ballarat and Bendigo.

Hawkes Bay has developed very strong links with local schools, whilst Nelson has drawn significant membership from a strong local adventure racing community.

Many of us will have the opportunity to see New Zealand orienteering on its home turf at the Oceania Championships in early January. It’s been a long time since Australia has won any Australia-New Zealand Challenge competitions away from home (the 1994 Relay, to be precise) – a gap which we can, hopefully, do something about this time. I’m also looking forward to seeing the Australian World Cup team competing in their own hemisphere for the first time since 2000. We have a strong team, combining the core of our current World Championships team with several younger orienteers making their first appearance at this level, and it should be an excellent opportunity for them.

Finally, moving closer to home, two major Orienteering Australia initiatives should go live over the next few weeks. We are in the process of developing a new and improved OA website, and are also implementing a new national system for online entry (those of you who have entered the Christmas 5-Days will have had the chance to see this in its testing mode). As well as providing a readily available platform for online entry and payment, this system will also integrate much more seamlessly with event management software, making life much easier for organisers (once it’s working properly). Craig Feuerherdt has been doing a great deal of work to get both projects to this point and deserves our thanks for his contributions so far.

DECEMBER 2012 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 DECEMBER 2012

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 President: Director High Performance: Director Finance: Director Technical: Director Special Projects: Director Communications: Director International IOF Council: Executive Officer: High Performance Manager: Badge Applications:

PO Box 284 Mitchell BC 2911 orienteering@netspeed.com.au w: 02 6162 1200 Blair Trewin oa_president@netspeed.com.au h: 03 9455 3516 Grant Bluett oa_highperformance@netspeed.com.au Bruce Bowen oa_finance@netspeed.com.au h: 02 6288 8501 Robin Uppill oa_technical@netspeed.com.au h: 08 8278 3017 m: 0419 037 770 Robert Spry rbspry@gmail.com Craig Feuerherdt craigfeuerherdt@gmail.com 0438 050 074 Mike Dowling oa_international@netspeed.com.au John Harding orienteering@netspeed.com.au 02 6162 1200 m: 0427 107 033 Kay Haarsma kayhaarsma@hotmail.com 08 8337 0522 John Oliver 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 OA NSW: 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

January 11. Time-sensitive: Jan 18

ISSN 0818-6510 Issue 3/12 (no. 167) SEPTEMBER 2012

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: January 11; Time-sensitive - January 18.

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@halenet.com.au NSW – Maggie Jones: communications@onsw.asn.au 0415 214 503 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.

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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 AUS CHAMPIONSHIPS............................... 6 AUS SCHOOLS CHAMPIONSHIPS................ 16 O R I E N T E E R I N G PAT H W A Y S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 9 STRESS & INJURIES IN ORIENTEERING ...... 20 B O O K R E V I E W – Ch ri s Bras h er.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2 HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER....................... 24 THE MEDIA.......................................... 26 H O W G O O D W A S T H AT S P R I N T.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 8 B I G M I S TA K E S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 0 WORLD MTBO CHAMPS........................... 32 AUS MTBO CHAMPS............................... 36 N U T R I T I O N – Glu ten Free.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 9 O - S P Y.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 0 O R I E N T E E R I N G I N N E W C A L E D O N I A .. . . . . . . . . . . 4 2 L E T T E R S .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4 TOP EVENTS......................................... 45 I N T E R V I E W – H erman n Weh n er. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6

Cover photo: The winning AUS Schools Senior Girls Relay team from South Australia: Sally Young, Olivia Sprod, Melanie Fuller.

Photo: Michael Hubbert.

DECEMBER DECEMBER2012 2012THE THEAUSTRALIAN AUSTRALIANORIENTEER ORIENTEER 5

AUS CHAMPIONSHIPS

Grace Crane. Photo: Clive Roper Photography

The Trewin Report Blair Trewin

T

he Australian Championships week came to Tasmania this year, taking Australia’s orienteers to a destination which was familiar to many of them – St. Helens. Perhaps less familiar to many (as evidenced by the number of mistakes made) was the tin mining terrain of the Golden Fleece area west of the town.

This was originally used for the 1992 Veteran World Cup and then the 1996 Australian Relays, and while it had been used regularly for Tasmanian events since, the only national event there in the last 16 years was a National League weekend in 2004.

It was a Tasmanian (albeit one who no longer lives there) who was the dominant figure of the week. Grace Crane took a break from international competition this year, but showed that she is still at the top of her game as she made a clean sweep of the three individual national championships. It was not quite enough to win her the National League – Rachel Effeney had enough points from the first half of the season to hold on – but that was about the only blip in an outstanding week for Crane. The week also saw two National League team results come down to the last leg of the Relay.

were controls in some classes where more than half the top 10 lost significant time. It was a day for the precise; if you were one of the few people who managed a reasonably clean run, you were going to place highly, even if you were not especially fast.

Grace Crane was one who did manage a reasonably clean run and did it reasonably quickly, and that combination took her to a win which was overwhelming by the standard of elite Middle Distance competition – more than six minutes. She never looked like losing after the first few controls, and a solid win became an overwhelming one when she blew everyone away on the long leg to #21. Experience came to the fore amongst her nearest rivals, with the minor placings filled by Anna Sheldon and Tracy Marsh.

Not for the first time, it was a double for the Crane household.

Matt did not have as easy a road to the top as Grace, losing time early and being 90 seconds down by #4. Josh Blatchford was the early leader before running into trouble; that left Max Neve, in by far his best result at this level, to lead for much of the race.

The long leg proved decisive; Crane gained nearly two minutes on Neve there, and a lead which he would not relinquish. Neve held on to second, with Lachlan Dow third on a good day for the younger brigade.

Australian Middle Distance Championships, 22 September

Todd Neve took advantage of a weakened Junior men’s field – several were running seniors in pursuit of World Cup places – to get his biggest win yet. He opened a big early lead before losing four minutes at #9, but recovered to take the result over James Robertson and Ashley Nankervis. Heather Muir is the fastest of the Junior women on a good day and this was a good day; only the New Zealander Lauren Turner got within seven minutes of her.

The Middle Distance plunged most competitors straight into the mining; a small detailed area with lots of erosion, lots of green and generally low visibility. It was a serious challenge and many competitors across the classes stumbled at the early hurdles; there

It was a day where some of the cream came to the top in a big way, and a number of the long-standing figures of Australian orienteering chalked up huge victories by Middle Distance standards: Sue Key by seven minutes in W55, Geoff Lawford and

6 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

Jessica Hoey (RRQ). Photo: Clive Roper Photography

Lilian Burrill (BBQ). Photo: Tony Hill

DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 7

AUS CHAMPIONSHIPS

Steve Doyle. Photo: Clive Roper Photography

Rosie Dalheim (MFR). Photo: Tony Hill

Jenny Bourne by six apiece in M55 and W50 respectively, and Alex Tarr (M70), Bernard Walker (M50) and Su Yan Tay (W45) all by four to five minutes in their classes.

At the other end of the scale, the day’s closest race was M65, where Ian Fletcher was 12 seconds ahead of Terry Bluett, with four within 93 seconds of the lead and seven within three minutes.

Fletcher, who was fifth at #9 but only 1min44sec behind at that stage, did not take the lead for the first time until the long thirdlast leg. Also close was W65, where Libby Meeking’s 35-second win led a Yarra Valley trifecta also involving Ruth Goddard and Kathy Liley.

The New Zealand juniors showed the first indicators that they were likely to dominate again this year. Ed Cory-Wright led a sweep of the field in M16, despite all three placegetters losing significant time early, while Kayla Fairbairn’s four-minute W16 win over Lanita Steer – she was already four minutes ahead ten minutes into the race – was also a demonstration of intent.

Tasmanian Long Distance Championships, 23 September Both Cranes made it two wins from two starts in the Tasmanian Championships, which used the same assembly area as the previous day but stayed mostly in the granite parts of the area.

Once again, Grace won with a very large margin – 10 minutes this time. For the first half of the race her closest rival was fellow Tasmanian Sarah Buckerfield, who was within two minutes at #9, but she lost ten minutes on the long tenth. From there the only real interest was in the size of the margin and the battle for second; Laurina Neumann looked winning the latter at times, but lost a bit of ground late, completing Jasmine Neve’s recovery from a slow start. Tracy Marsh completed the placings.

8 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

Simeon Burrill (BBQ). Photo: Tony Hill

This time, Matt started well, and opened up a narrow lead early in the race which he held for the rest of the way. Lachlan Dow also had another good day and was in second through the first half, but gradually drifted back thereafter, leaving things open for the old Long Distance hands. Rob Walter made it a Cockatoos double when he came in just under two minutes behind, with Rob Preston another minute back.

The big guns were back in M20. For a lot of the course it was a tight battle between National League leader Oliver Poland and New Zealand WOC finalist Tim Robertson, with Robertson a narrow leader, and Matt Doyle also in the hunt. At #13 the top three were still only separated by just over two minutes, but late mistakes by Robertson and Doyle blew Poland’s winning margin out to six minutes.

In W20 there was some reshuffling of the order, after the main players all lost time early on. For the first half it was a very close contest between Lilian Burrill and Heather Muir, but Muir lost three minutes to Burrill on the long leg to leave her Queensland teammate with a comfortable lead. Another bit of lost time at the third-last saw Amy Buckerfield, who had been sixth at #6, come through Muir to take second.

Despite the longer distance, the technically easier terrain meant fewer really big margins in the older classes, and there were some real nail-biters – Robin Uppill by two seconds over Sue Key in W55, Nigel Davies by ten over Adrian Uppill in M60, and John Hodsdon by sixteen over John Brammall in M70 – with the first two not hitting the front until the very end of the race. Ed CoryWright again led a dominant New Zealand performance in M16, but in W16 there was a rare Australian win through Lanita Steer.

Alison Burrill (BBQ). Photo: Tony Hill

Nicholas Spaulding (TEO). Photo: John Harding

Ian de Jongh (BSA). Photo: Tony Hill

Australian Schools Championships, 25-26 September

looked like winning, Brodie Nankervis was only a minute further back.

The action moved inland to Royal George for the two days of the Australian Schools Championships. Once again, New Zealand dominated the Southern Cross Junior Challenge, while Tasmania were equally dominant in the interstate competition, their depth across all four age groups making them beyond challenge by any of the other States.

The only local individual winner was Michele Dawson in the Senior Girls. Illness made her JWOC experience a forgettable one, but she showed the form which got her there. For most of the race it was a close battle between Dawson and Lauren Turner, with Dawson having a narrow edge, but the New Zealander lost two minutes at the third-last to settle it.

The New Zealand dominance made its presence felt on Individual day, where they won three of the four races and took eight of a possible twelve places. Most emphatically, they took an unprecedented 1-2-3-4 sweep of the Junior Girls, although the order was not quite what was expected; Kayla Fairbairn was the clear pre-race favourite but two small errors in mid-race dropped her to third, leaving her younger teammate Lara Molloy to take the honours ahead of Alice Tilley. The most likely local challenger, defending champion Winnie Oakhill, made a major error at #10 and finished in midfield.

Both Senior classes gave us Relay races to remember, particularly the Senior Girls, an often wild and erratic ride which gave us some epic finishes, quite a bit of drama (much of it associated with a challenging second-last control which was almost within sight of the crowd) and a major upset result. The South Australian team had their best year for a while without quite breaking into the top places overall, but Olivia Sprod’s opening leg set up a result which few would have foreseen before the day started. They were together with Tasmania after two legs and Mel Fuller opened up a two-minute break on Bec Butler at the spectator control, which she almost lost at the second-last, but she just held on.

Another nail-biting finish, for fifth, might have seemed of little consequence except that it was going to decide who was going to join NSW in equal second overall. Kelsey Harvey (Queensland) and Lucy Fleming (Victoria) headed into the vicinity of the second-last and did not emerge for five agonising minutes, but when they did Harvey had just enough pace to hit the line first.

Ed Cory-Wright continued his good form of the week and made it three wins in four days in the Junior Boys. Whilst they could not quite match the girls, they did have four in the top six, with only Jarrah Day – second for a while before losing some time late and dropping behind Callum Herries – breaking into the placings.

The Senior Boys’ race brought together a top end of exceptional quality at this level – it’s not every year you see a WOC finalist in a Schools’ championships, with two leading Australian JWOC team members to give him competition. Oliver Poland led through most of the first half and got his lead out as far as 51 seconds at #10, but lost some time at the next two before Tim Robertson edged away for a 43-second win. While he never quite

The Senior Boys turned on a decent race too. An upset looked on the cards here, too, when Nicholas Collins built on Matt Doyle’s opening leg to give Victoria a one-minute lead into the final leg, but that was not enough to hold off the New Zealanders, who came through for a comfortable victory. In the end it was not DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 9

AUS CHAMPIONSHIPS

Bicheno AUS Sprint. Photo: Tony Hill

Grace Crane won AUS Sprint title. Photo: Clive Roper Photography

Heather Muir leads Sally-Anne Henderson. Photo: John Harding

enough to hold off the Tasmanians either, with Brodie Nankervis running down Angus Robinson in the closing stages.

Both Junior classes were predictable non-contests with doubledigit New Zealand victories. The interest was in what was happening behind that, with big individual performances the key.

Jarrah Day ran the day’s fastest time on the final leg to consolidate Tasmania’s second in the Junior Boys’, while Winnie Oakhill’s second leg saw Queensland recover from a poor start to be the leading State in the Junior Girls’ event.

Australian Sprint Championships, 28 September The carnival moved down the coast to Bicheno for the Australian Sprint Championships, onto an area not quite like anywhere we have been before – significant areas of coastal rock shelves with streets and parks in between. It was a wet day, especially in the morning when the elite classes were running, and finding a good grip on the rock was a major factor.

The women’s field had some strength added to it with the addition of Lizzie Ingham and Rachel Effeney. Ingham, in particular, was expected to provide formidable opposition given her top-10 Sprint result at WOC, and for the first half of the course she did exactly that, establishing a gap which got out to 41secs at one stage. That gave Grace Crane her biggest test of the week, but she was not to be denied as she came home in a rush, winning six of the last seven splits and taking the lead for the first time at the second-last. In the end the margin was 14 seconds.

The race for third was equally close; Aislinn Prendergast, hitherto noted as a long distance specialist, edged Effeney out by nine seconds after a tight contest most of the way.

Rune Olsen spent a couple of years in Melbourne in the mid-2000s – clearly long enough to be sufficiently culturally assimilated to make the trip from Europe to see Hawthorn in 10 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

the Grand Final. He took in the Sprint Championships while he was here, and despite an unconventional and decidedly limited preparation, he did what his football team couldn’t and came home with a win. It was very close through the first half, but he gradually edged away from Bryan Keely over the later controls to finish 20 seconds ahead. Tim Robertson lost 50secs at #3 to put himself out of title contention, but still ran well enough over the rest of the course to take third by two seconds – a result decided in the finish chute – from Matt Crane.

Todd Neve took another step up by taking his second M20 win of the week, this time against close to a full-strength field.

Oliver Poland held a narrow lead in the first half before losing 30 seconds at #11 to fall behind. He got back to the front at #20 and looked like he would go on with it, but Neve found a second wind and took the race by six seconds. Brodie Nankervis was another 15secs down in third, while Oscar McNulty, with two senior National League Sprint wins to his name this year, lost significant time on the first two controls and placed fifth.

W20 was a more straightforward race, with Heather Muir always comfortable in a 44-seconds win over Lilian Burrill, with Amy Buckerfield in third.

Perhaps the most interesting of the other classes was M60, where Nick Dent broke through for a win after having his chances in other events. This was a race with many missed controls, including

by Adrian Uppill and Bruce Bowen (who would have been first and third respectively).

The Sprint produced a few changes to the week’s regular order of things. Some of this involved Sprint specialists, like Michael Burton in M50, doing their thing. Others involved turnaround from the forest terrain, such as Liz Abbott’s eight-second win over Carolyn Matthews in W50, with Jenny Bourne third. Devon Beckman added a new New Zealand name to the winners’ list in M16 ahead of two Australian youngsters with career-best results,

Sophie Barker (MFR).

Photo: Clive Roper Photography

John-Joe Wilson (CHV).

Photo: Clive Roper Photography

Elliott Meelen (RRQ).

Photo: Clive Roper Photography

Will Kennedy and Oisin Stronach. Some made a big splash on their first appearance of the week, none more so than Valerie Barker, who was more than two minutes ahead of the W60 field.

Australian Long Distance Championships, 29 September It was back to the tin mining for the Australian Long Distance Championships, although less continuously than the previous Saturday, and with a bit more yellow and a bit less green. The improved visibility of the mining around the Finish area did not seem to make it any easier, though – most classes went through it over their closing stages, and many were decided by errors which were made in those closing stages, some dramatically (someone led into the second-last control but lost 32 minutes there) and others more subtly.

One of the classes which was decided at almost the last hurdle was in M21. Matt Crane looked the likeliest winner for most of the course. He had to see off a challenge by Josh Blatchford who led for parts of the first half, and Tim Robertson was closing as the final controls approached, but Crane still had more than two minutes in hand going into the last three. Disaster struck there, though – he dropped four minutes at the third-last, and another minute at the next, and just like that the New Zealand junior, hitherto noted mainly as a sprinter, had a senior national title to his name. Robertson also lost some time at the second-last, but not enough to lose the race; a stumble at the same location meant Bryan Keely lost the resident title to Rob Preston, with Crane missing the places altogether.

There was no such drama in the top places of W21 as Grace Crane took another comfortable victory. Rachel Effeney was her closest challenger and was two minutes down at two-thirds distance, but lost some time late and the margin drifted out to six. Everyone behind her lost time late too, though, and the Queenslander was DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 11

AUS CHAMPIONSHIPS

Molly Egerton (SA). Photo: Clive Roper Photography

Liana Stubbs (EVT).

Photo: Tony Hill

Neil Hawthorne.

Photo: Clive Roper Photography

able to get the second place she needed to claim the National League title, with Kathryn Preston, caught late in the course by Crane, in third place.

In M20 Oliver Poland had a rather erratic start, losing four minutes at four controls in the first half, and was still only in fourth place at #13 with Oscar McNulty setting the early pace. An eye injury scuttled the Western Australian’s hopes as he drifted back to fifth, and Poland took command of the race on the long #14 as prelude to a very good finish. Brodie Nankervis was his closest challenger, three minutes down, with Matt Doyle also finishing well to come into third.

Heather Muir looked set for a runaway win in W20 when she was three minutes clear at #9. She then dropped four minutes at #10, but was back in front two controls later and stayed there, in a race in which five of the top six lost at least two minutes at the thirdlast. Lilian Burrill, who had been behind the eight-ball after losing three minutes at the first control, came through with a steady finish to take second.

New Zealand once again took the trifecta in W16, led by Alice Tilley this time, but elsewhere the younger junior classes were a place for locals to achieve breakthrough results which not many saw coming beforehand. Stephen Melhuish held a narrow lead most of the way to edge out the Kiwi pair of Ed Cory-Wright and Callum Herries in M16, Georgia Jones was the one W14 to get through the course without significant mishap and was rewarded with a comfortable win, and Riley de Jong gave the Queensland team something to celebrate in M14.

As with the previous Saturday, few got through the Masters classes technically unscathed (or close to unscathed), and those who did were richly rewarded. Steve Flick was five minutes ahead of the field in the normally very tight M65 class, while others who enjoyed similar or larger margins included Eddie Wymer (M45) 14 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012 12

and the usual suspects of Geoff Lawford (M55) and Jenny Bourne (W50).

In some classes no-one was able to get through without major trouble, and the end result was close. W45 was one of the closer, and more erratic, of the classes, with five different leaders and Sue Hancock emerging at the head of a group of five within four minutes after Paula Savolainen lost four minutes at the third-last.

Carolyn Jackson headed Robin Uppill by 43secs in a W55 race in which the three leaders all lost major time at #9, while Bernard Walker looked to have blown a five-minute lead in M50 when he lost eight minutes at #14; two mistakes by Michael Burton put the Tasmanian back in the race and he ended up 37 seconds ahead of the fast-finishing Mike Morffew.

The two 40s classes saw small fields but high-standard races. The first control was effectively the difference in Clare Hawthorne’s three-minute win over Jenny Enderby, while Jon McComb held a narrow lead throughout in seeing off Jock Davis. Others who had wins by reasonable margins after leading most of the way were Carol Brownlie (W60) and David Marshall (M60).

Australian Relays, 30 September The week finished with the granite of Littlechild Creek, for many a welcome change (on the technical front at least) from the challenges of the Golden Fleece mining. The races were significant in themselves, but also held the key to two National League team results (the Canberra Cockatoos and Queensland Cyclones having long since stitched up the Senior Men and Junior Women respectively), with the Junior Men and Senior Women both winner-take-all affairs.

The Senior Women’s battle between Victoria and Queensland was worthy of the occasion. The Cyclones had held a narrow lead for

Jessica Hoey (RRQ).

Photo: Clive Roper Photography

Oliver Martin (WOW).

Photo: Clive Roper Photography

most of the year but it had been whittled down in the season’s final week. Jasmine Neve and Laurina Neumann were together after the first leg – a minute down on Tracy Marsh in an otherwise uncompetitive NSW team. Aislinn Prendergast then edged out a couple of minutes over Bridget Anderson on the second leg, sending out Kathryn Preston and Rachel Effeney with all to race for. Preston lost the lead immediately, dropping three minutes at #1, but got it back when her opponent did the same at #2, and after further mistakes by both at #5 they emerged from the first half with the status quo intact. Both settled after that and the Victorian looked almost safe, but then almost blew it with another miss at #12. She emerged in front – just – and held on to give the Nuggets the title by 28 seconds.

New Zealand took a seven-minute lead on the first leg in M20 and were never headed despite losing time at the end, but the real interest was behind them with Victoria and Tasmania fighting for the National League title. Neither team got a great start and ended the first leg together in fourth, but it was the second leg which was decisive; with the Tasmanians without Ashley Nankervis thanks to an injury earlier in the week, Todd Neve pulled out a seven-minute gap on Stuart Lawrie. Brodie Nankervis was able to make slight inroads into that, but as long as Matt Doyle held it together the inroads were always likely to be slight, and the Victorians had five minutes in hand at the end. There was no such excitement for the Junior Women, where Queensland were six minutes in front after the first leg and were never really threatened.

The Senior Men turned on a good race even if it was without broader implications. The NSW Stingers hung in there for two legs, thanks in part to Kasimir Gregory – a surprise selection for the first team – coming in only just behind Lachlan Dow, and when the last leg started they were just in front of the Cockatoos.

Josh Blatchford gave it a good go for the Stingers, too, but it was

Winnie Oakhill (UGQ).

Photo: Clive Roper Photography

not quite enough to stay with Matt Crane and the ACT finished two minutes ahead. A good day for the Stingers continued when their second team edged Victoria out for third.

The Masters women classes had more than their share of turnarounds, with all four classes being won by teams which trailed going into the final leg. Late mistakes were crucial in W45, where Clare Leung overtook Gayle Quantock to give Queensland a victory over NSW, and in W65, where NSW also lost out when Ruth Goddard overhauled Maureen Ogilvie to give Victoria a win. The news was happier for NSW in W55, where Lynn Dabbs dominated the final leg to turn a close contest into a no-contest, whilst the hot-favourite Victorian W35 team had to work harder than they thought after finding themselves fifteen minutes down after the first leg, but Jenny Bourne was able to haul in a tenminute gap at the end.

The men were a bit more predictable. NSW had a big win over Western Australia in M65 and Bernard Walker’s first leg set Tasmania up for a comfortable win in M45, although Geoff Lawford cut the lead from ten minutes to three at the end. Most bizarre was the M55 race, in which the first three teams across the line mispunched (Tasmania and ACT on the second leg, NSW on the third), leaving the Tasmanian second team to inherit a comprehensive victory.

New Zealand took both 16s classes as expected, although they had to work harder than expected in W16; Kayla Fairbairn lost four minutes on the second-last and almost let Tasmania back into it, but Anna Dowling’s final-leg charge for Tasmania fell a minute short. Lanita Steer ran an even faster last leg to take Victoria into third. M16 had no such dramas, with the Kiwis finishing eight minutes ahead of NSW. The NSW points were enough to secure the Xanthorrhoea Trophy for interstate competition, in a close result over Tasmania.

DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 13

AUS CHAMPIONSHIPS

Jill Elderfield – SWOT, WA

A

nother Australian Orienteering Carnival, incorporating the Australian Schools Orienteering Championships, has happened - seven Orienteering events within nine days around St Helens, Bicheno and Royal George in northeastern Tasmania!

‘Beaches and Boulders’ necessitated substantial input from countless volunteers.

Orienteering Tasmania best knows who contributed to this excellent carnival and I am confident that those individuals and organisations will be appropriately acknowledged and sincerely thanked. (Some include Greg Hawthorne, St John Ambulance, Royal George landowners, Sponsors, course setters, St Helens Police, Glamorgan and Break O’Day Shire Councils, residents of Bicheno and St Helens, ...).

Two individuals, supported and tolerated by their families, had key responsibilities which contributed significantly to the success of the Australian Schools Championships; Warren McDonough and Kim Nankervis.

It would not be possible to describe adequately the time and the expertise gifted by Warren McDonough. Before meeting with other states’ School Orienteering representatives in Queensland at

Canberra Autumn Classics 2013 Centenary of Canberra ACT Championships May 4 – Sprint Distance (am) CSIRO Black Mtn (Acton) May 4 - Middle Distance (pm) Orroral North (Namadgi) May 5 - Long Distance Boboyan (Namadgi) http://act.orienteering.asn.au/events/major-events/

Silva National League events 7-9 Full range of Age Classes

Kim Nankervis not only harnessed the skills of her husband Dirk for the Start Draw Presentation and her son, a Chef, to serve a wonderful cooked breakfast for 150 hungry Juniors, she contributed two vital ingredients. It was Kim who delivered breakfast supplies and adjusted these for the particular fancies of the inmates of each of the students’ cabins. ‘More bread please’; ‘We have too much bread’; ‘None of us like cornflakes’; or ‘Please can we have more yoghurt’ seemed not to faze this wonderwoman! In conjunction with this juggling act, it was Kim, assisted

by Ainsley Caravanagh and Mike Dowling, who orchestrated the Team Challenge. This year it was a smorgasbord of quiz questions, picture hunts, paper-chase, silly games, photography, creative writing and more, and was a huge team-building and educational success.

After seeing Warren McDonough and Kim Nankervis in action, I did wonder if orienteers expect too much of themselves and their volunteering ethos. Tasmanians, Kim and Warren may have found the Carnival a ‘Devil’ of a job but perhaps they are ‘Tigers’ for punishment!

aussieogear.com

Congratulations Tasmania

Easter, it was apparent that he had been industriously planning, delegating, travelling, writing letters, emailing, budgeting and liaising with a host of individuals, businesses and organisations.

From then, demands upon him were obviously relentless.

Emailed Bulletins were ‘Sent’ in the early hours of the morning.

Did the man ever sleep! To specific queries, prompt and helpful responses were provided. Alternative arrangements were achieved.

All was accomplished during his ‘spare’ time. During the Carnival, Warren was available 24/7 and his courtesy, flexibility, listening and negotiation skills and humour never waned.

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14 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 15

AUS SCHOOLS CHAMPIONSHIPS

Qld wins Junior Girls relay

Daniel Hill

Ollie Poland Rebecca Butler

Patrick Jaffe

Brodie Nankervis

Michele Dawson

2012

WINNERS

Point scores for Australian Schools Championships

State

Tasmania

1st

Tasmania

53 points

Senior Girls

Michele Dawson (NSW)

2nd

New South Wales

36 points

Senior Boys

Oliver Poland (ACT)

2nd

Queensland

36 points

Junior Girls

Asha Steer (VIC)

4th

Victoria

35 points

Junior Boys

Jarrah Day (TAS)

5th

Australian Capital Territory

27 points

Senior Girls Relay

South Australia

5th

South Australia

27 points

Senior Boys Relay

Tasmania

7th

Western Australia

5 points

Junior Girls Relay

Queensland

Junior Boys Relay

Tasmania

16 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

Hannah Goddard

Anna Dowling

Jarrah Day Asha Steer Georgia Jones

Stephen Melhuish

Nicola Blatchford

Matt Doyle

SA wins Senior Girls relay

Point scores for Southern Cross Junior Challenge

The Australian Schools Honour Team

1st

New Zealand

61 points

2nd

Tasmania

54 points

3rd

New South Wales

37 points

4th

Queensland

36 points

5th

Victoria

35 points

Junior Girls Hannah Goddard (TAS) Georgia Jones (NSW) Asha Steer (VIC) Heather Burridge (QLD)

Junior Boys Jarrah Day (TAS) Patrick Jaffe (VIC) Stephen Melhuish (ACT) Daniel Hill (NSW)

6th

South Australia

28 points

7th

Australian Capital Territory

27 points

8th

Western Australia

5 points

Senior Girls Michele Dawson (NSW) Anna Dowling (TAS) Nicola Blatchford (NSW) Rebecca Butler (TAS)

Senior Boys Brodie Nankervis (TAS) Shaun McDonough (TAS) Oliver Poland (ACT) Matt Doyle (VIC)

DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 17

10 Questions to Discover .…

what kind of orienteer are you?

Maggie Jones – ONSW Communications

We often describe ourselves and other participants as being keen and committed orienteers, but just what kind of orienteer are we?

Q1 – How often do you

Q5 – When you pick up

Q10 – When you are

a) You try to go to an event once a month?

a) S print to the Start triangle to get in front of the junior elites?

a) Looking at old maps?

go orienteering?

b) Y ou are a keen urban orienteer and try to get to most major bush races? c) You once missed a race in 2004?

Q2 – Before you go to the Start do you?

a) Spend time looking at the last course run on this map? b) W arm up with the juniors? c) Wait until the last minute chatting with your friends in the loo queue?

Q3 – What protection

do you wear on your legs for bush orienteering? a) Long trousers? b) Gaiters? c) Hair?

Q4 – When you don’t

recognise a symbol on your control description sheet do you? a) Ignore it. The control is in the centre of the circle? b) C omplain that the control sheet must be wrong? c) Delay the Start by asking everyone in the start box to explain what the symbol means?

your map do you?

b) O rientate yourself immediately? c) F ollow everyone else and hope they have the same first control as you?

Q6 – When you see 10 contours between the next two controls do you?

a) G o straight up and over them?

not orienteering your favourite pastime is?

b) B ooking accommodation for the next major State event? c) Seeing your physio?

Now score your questions, find the total and discover the truth! a

b

c

1

2

0

Q2

0

1

2

Q3

2

1

0

Q4

1

2

0

Q5

2

1

0

b) S low and check your map?

Q6

1

0

2

Q7

2

1

0

c) U se your sneaky GPS hidden in your back pocket?

Q8

2

1

0

Q9

1

2

0

Q10

2

1

0

c) S it down and cry?

Q7 – When entering a

big boulder field do you? a) R un very hard and hope for the best?

Q8 – Where do you

make up the most time on your course?

So what kind of orienteer are you?

b) A ny control where you don’t make a major mistake?

you are probably a Newbie

Q9 – What is your season’s goal?

a) B eing ‘Orienteer of the Year’ in your age group? b) I mproving a specific technique like your compass work? c) F inishing a race?

18 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

All your runs are successful except where the mappers have clearly made some mistakes. You are planning to run at the WMOC in the M/ W100 category in a few years time.

you are a Wannabe You trawl websites to discover how to run faster.

All your friends on Facebook are orienteers. Actually, all your friends are orienteers.

You aspire to greatness which is why you have enrolled on a Swedish speaking course so you can go to the O-Ringen and meet your future life partner.

21+

you are Julian Dent

Your TOTAL

a) E very control – through your marvellous control flow and exit direction technique?

c) T he Finish chute?

you’re a Wily old fox

15-20

Q1

b) C ontour around them?

8-14

0-7

You are new to the sport but mustard keen. You have lots to learn but you are prepared to throw yourself at the hardest course – the organisers all know search and rescue techniques don’t they?

J-Squad Gold Achievement badge

AUS SCHOOLS CHAMPIONSHIPS

Orienteering Pathways – a reflection on Victoria’s experience over the past few years.

Philippa Lohmeyer-Collins – Bayside Kangaroos, VIC

F

or many of you Orienteering has been bred into your DNA. Your father and/or mother were orienteers, probably represented Australia, and now you, their children orienteer. It was never a choice – seriously! You have grown up wandering around string courses and learnt to read maps better than any of your folks ever could. So of course, representing Victoria (or any other State) in the Schools Team is a rite of passage.

Or is it?

This year’s Victorian Schools Team included a few members whose pathway has come via the Bendigo J Squad, namely Leisha Maggs, Lachlan Cherry, Tavish Eenjes, Sequoia Weitman and Louis Cameron. John-Joe Wilson, also from Bendigo, has been a member of the team for three years now.

None of their parents have orienteered prior to their children’s involvement although it is my observation that Tavish’s folks and sister have discovered both the joy and frustration that is part of the Orienteering experience. Maybe we are beginning to see the benefits of Bendigo’s serious commitment to nurturing their Juniors.

onto the Schools Honour Team for 2012. Also selected for the Oceania Schools Team, as reserves, were Leisha Maggs and Patrick Jaffe, both of whom have a history of involvement in athletics.

Interestingly, the Park & Street competition has produced a few members of the Schools Team although not as many as may have been hoped for. Nicholas and Peter Collins came via this route although they also needed the encouragement of their club, Bayside Kangaroos, along with meeting fellow peer, Angus Robinson. Is anything to be made from the fact that all three also play hockey?

Of course, those children of the Orienteering Elite should not be taken for granted as they have to make their own way but it is certainly a clear pathway into Orienteering success as observed in past years with the Neve siblings. This year Max Dalheim joined his sister Rosie on the Team and as the week of Orienteering progressed so did the width of Max’s smile as he gained in confidence and skill. I know I am not alone in looking forward to seeing the Keys, Arthurs and Wymer children journey onto the VIC Schools Team.

Of course, as was observed by one Orienteering President of Australia during the course of the Championships – “Just how much did Victoria pay for the transfer of Matt Doyle from Queensland to Victoria?” Blair Trewin was joking but Matt had a fine carnival culminating in his selection onto the Australian Honour Team and Schools Team for the Oceania competition to be held in New Zealand in January. Matt’s family is all involved and Matt, under the guidance of his Dad, Steve, came well trained for these championships.

Braemar College in Macedon has, for a long time, encouraged the development of Orienteering including providing Team managers for the Team including the present manager, Nicky Stevens. This year Sam Hassell and Seb Winter joined the team for the first time along with Team captain Lucy Fleming and Emily Hennessy, all from Braemar.

So what makes a good pathway to Orienteering success? The above suggests there are various routes but I suggest there is one factor in common – practise in the bush combined with running fitness and helpful navigational teaching from experienced veterans. This year the Victorian Schools Team was selected earlier than usual and this allowed for all members to train together. So fresh young members plus those who had been part of the Team for a while and also the experienced elite members worked together and gelled into one team.

Involvement in athletics is also a clear indicator of ability to achieve in Orienteering. Both Lanita and Asha Steer, from Dandenong Ranges Club, combine Orienteering with serious athletic competition. Both also performed extremely well in the Australian Championships and were selected into the Schools Team to represent Australia in New Zealand at the January Oceania 2013 competition. Asha was also selected

The placing of Victoria came down to the last event, the Relay, and who would win the Sprint finish between Lucy and the Queensland lass, Lucy having made up time. Sadly we were pipped and as a team, came in 4th on 35 points after Queensland and NSW on 36 points and Tasmania on 53 points. We have a long way to go to beat Tasmania but NSW and Qld – watch out!

DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER

19

COACHING

Stress and Injuries in Orienteering Hanny Allston

The following article will be one in a series of papers and is based on the plethora of research available on the stress response in athletes. However, the articles are also written with a personal understanding of how a build-up of family, university, working, training and elite competition stresses affected me during the latter stages of my Orienteering career. I believe that understanding how stress can affect our bodies is critical to competently developing training programs, preparing for competitions and ensuring adequate recovery. I believe it is also important for coaches to understand the science of stress if we are to continue to assist our athletes to achieve on the international stage.

O

rienteers are high achievers who balance numerous responsibilities every day. Work, study, relationships, training and competition, orienteers aim to do it all and aim to do them all well. Globally, the sport of Orienteering receives limited funding and requires its elite athletes to work or study to finance their endeavours. Balancing daily responsibilities with the desire to fulfil Orienteering ambitions is a fine balance and can be stressful. The purpose of this article is to explain the body’s stress response and to explain how chronic or long-term stress increases the risk of injury and illness.

Stress: The flight-or-fight response Stress is defined as the body’s reaction to a change in our normal steady state that requires a physical, mental or emotional adjustment or response. Stress, also defined as the flight-or-fight response, is a condition of the mind-body interaction and the sum total of all mental and physical inputs over a given period of time . There are many different forms of stress that athletes are placed under. Short-term stressors such as hard training sessions, competitions or busy workloads are normal and our bodies adjust to these responses relatively easily. However, many athletes chronically overload their bodies with heavy or high-volume training and continual complex lifestyles.

The stress response: flight or fight?

The flight-or-fight response causes our brain to undergo changes in order to direct our body systems into either an action or shutdown mode. The brain differentiates between the different types of stressors, determines the behavioural and physiological 20 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

responses, and determines whether the response will be healthpromoting or health-damaging . Stress directly affects the metabolic, cardiovascular, immune and skeletal systems via neural and endocrine inputs. Some of the immediate ways our body reacts to stressors are: an acceleration of the heart and lungs; the relocation of blood to the heart, lungs and muscles of movement; inhibition of the gastrointestinal tract; and mobilization of energy sources . However, over time stress can accumulate and an overexposure to neural, endocrine and immune stress mediators can have adverse effects on our organ systems . This can set a lifelong pattern of behavior and physiological reactivity.

There are two important body systems that participate in maintaining a steady-state during stressful situations, the endocrine and nervous systems .

The endocrine response: Stress hormones Physical and emotional pressures both provoke responses by the two adrenal glands situated near the kidneys. The adrenal glands produce two primary hormones, cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) . Both cortisol and DHEA are considered the major ‘shock absorber’ hormones in the body and the marker most commonly used to measure acute and chronic stress levels is the blood concentration of cortisol.

Cortisol Cortisol is a steroid hormone involved in the regulation of essential bodily functions . It acts to regulate blood pressure, cardiovascular function, and the body’s use of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Released during stress it causes a breakdown of muscle protein for glucose synthesis and the production of energy from fat cells. Together, these energyreleasing processes prepare the individual to respond to the stressors.

The body possesses an elaborate feedback system for controlling cortisol secretion (which is beyond the scope of this article).

However, prolonged exposure to stress can alter the accuracy of this negative feedback loop resulting in excessive levels of cortisol acting in the body.

Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) is the most abundant hormone found in the body’s bloodstream. DHEA is vital to health . In a normal steady state, the body produces large amounts of the hormone to: regulate hormonal actions by its role as a precursor to other hormones, such as estradiol and testosterone; increase fat metabolism to regulate energy and body temperature; generate the feeling of satiety; enhance immune protection; improve calcium absorption into the bones; act as an anti-inflammatory; and decrease the stress response . When the body becomes

chronically stressed, the adrenal glands decrease the production of DHEA. As states, ‘DHEA is a good stress barometer, because when stress levels go up, DHEA levels go down. This then leads to a drop in other hormones, such as testosterone, oestrogen and progesterone.’

Elevated stress is a huge risk factor for athletic injuries Stress Hormones and long-term stress When males and females participate in infrequent strenuous activity, such as running, the concentrations of both cortisol and DHEA increase until the demands on the body are met.

For athletes who are constantly under lifestyle, training and competition pressures, cortisol levels can remain chronically elevated whilst their DHEA levels can become significantly depressed. These altered levels are a result of the adrenal glands that have shrunken and decreased their hormone production in response to the body’s chronic stress load . The symptoms associated with adrenal dysfunction are diverse and can involve the digestive, circulatory, respiratory, as well as the brain and nervous systems. In addition, the adrenals can impact the growth and repair of bones, muscles, hair and nails.

Nervous System responses to stress Stress stimulates the nervous system and creates many physiological changes. It assists the mobility of blood to important parts of the body and also signals the adrenal glands to secrete adrenalin and noradrenalin, hormones that boost muscular energy and facilitate immediate physical responses in Photo: Clive Roper Photography

preparation for muscular exertion . The nervous system is also involved in our ability to return to a relaxed state after exposure to a stressor. If a stressor is continually affecting our body, the nervous system remains persistently switched on in a flight-orfight response and an alerted state all the time. This translates into a situation where the body cannot actually rest at all.

The chronic stress response in orienteers Orienteers who are continually under voluntary and involuntary stressors are at high risk of causing long-term changes to their bodies. High training, work and social loads with inadequate physical and mental rest can lead to a chronically activated sympathetic nervous system and depressed adrenal glands. An over-stimulated nervous system will cause: alterations to sleepawakening patterns; gut irritability and suppressed appetite; weight loss; agitation with poor concentration; and restlessness.

This will lead to inadequate recovery from training and competitions with an increasing feeling of being ‘stressed out’.

Simultaneously, hormone regulation patterns in the body will become disrupted resulting in increased cortisol and decreased DHEA levels. Increased cortisol levels in athletes will: prevent the storage of glycogen in the liver and muscles; increase the breakdown of remaining body glycogen stores through glycogenolysis; increase the rate of protein breakdown leading to muscle wasting; affect the circadian rhythm sleep cycles; increase urination rates causing dehydration; and decrease bone repair.

Decreased DHEA in athletes will result in: rapid breakdown of protein stores; an impaired ability to deposit calcium in the bones; a loss of adipose or fat tissue around the vital organs; suppression of the immune system; and generalized fatigue.

Therefore, when the body is continually trying to respond to chronic stressors, the athlete is at an elevated risk of muscle wasting, bone degradation, weight loss, disrupted sleep and immune suppression. It is well documented that a body in this state will inadequately repair existing injuries and that the athlete will have elevated injury risks. The athlete’s ability to recover from training would begin to diminish and performance would be affected. Evidence indicates that in severe circumstances, increased cortisol levels may predispose distance athletes to a number of diseases including immune suppression, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, depression, acute myocardial infarction and upper respiratory tract infections .

Conclusion To conclude this article in the series, the nature of Orienteering and its association with high achievers places participants at increased risk of injury and illness. Elevated stress is a huge risk factor for athletic injuries due to its disruption to the normal hormonal and nervous system responses that normally have a preventative action. Athletes with a high stress load, caused by increasing physical and psychological pressures with little associated rest, are at the highest risk of causing chronic, physical changes to the body and its systems.

In my next article, I will discuss how to monitor the stress load and how coaches could assist their athletes in preventing athlete burnout by moderating training and competition programs. I will also give a more personal account of how stress affected me as an athlete and what changes I have made to my lifestyle to overcome this.

Hanny Allston 503/9 Watkin Street, Bruce, ACT 2617 m: 0409 176 967 www.hannyallston.com.au

I encourage you to share your thoughts by writing to the editor or to me personally at hanny@findyourfeet.com.au.

(Hanny Allston, 503/9 Watkin Street, Bruce, ACT 2617; m: 0409 176 967; www.hannyallston.com.au) DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 21

BOOK REVIEW

CHRIS BRASHER The Man Who Made the London Marathon biography by John Bryant reviewed by John Colls Available in Australia from NewSouth Books, priced at $39.99 – ISBN 9781845136376 www.newsouthbooks.com.au/isbn/9781845136376.htm

In the aftermath of the recent Olympics it is timely to recall the exploits of a Londoner who won gold in Melbourne way back in 1956. Your esteemed editor knew Chris Brasher well, as a fellow member of the same running club, Ranelagh Harriers, during his own time in London many years ago. Likewise, John Colls was in regular contact with CB as Orienteering evolved in the UK during the 1970s and early 1980s.

Coincidentally, well before that, John had run crosscountry with the book’s author at Oxford in the 1960s.

T

his is a fascinating book. It tells the story of a ‘larger-than-life’ personality who, until his death from cancer in 2003, was involved for over 50 years in a vast range of outdoor pursuits competitive, recreational, commercial and social. It also canvasses many issues – sporting, ethical and political – that provide plenty of food for thought to any of us with similar interests.

CB’s achievements make for an impressive CV. As those sufficiently long in the tooth will recall, he first came to notice of the general public as the primary pace-maker for Roger Bannister’s immortal ‘four-minute mile’ in 1954. This was followed two years later by an unexpected (and controversial) gold medal in the 3000m steeplechase at the Melbourne Olympics. Soon afterwards he was introduced to, and became entranced by, the Scandinavian sport of ‘Orienteering’, going on to play a major part in its establishment in the UK. In particular, CB pushed hard and successfully for the revolutionary idea that any office-holder in the new sport must also be an active competitor – to avoid replicating the sclerotic blazer brigade who ruled UK athletics.

By now a household name in the UK as a leading sports’ journalist and presenter of pioneering BBC outdoor broadcasts, CB was able to leverage the promotion of Orienteering to the wider public to a level long since lost. This culminated with WOC1976 in Scotland (whose maps then launched the Scottish 6 Days), after which his creative urge shifted to setting up the London Marathon. In a less public forum, he was also involved with philanthropic work, notably the formation of the John Muir Trust, dedicated to preserving or restoring scenic and social heritage in remote parts of the UK. From an Orienteering perspective, there is no little irony in this progression of passions – though the point escapes mention in the book. By the time WOC returned to Scotland in 1999, CB was worried that several thousand visitors to the proposed venues (in Glen Affric) would be detrimental to local interests.

22 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

It took months of correspondence and on-site discussions for the WOC1999 organisers to find common ground with their predecessor from 23 years earlier!!

But CB was no stranger to either conflict or irony. Early in his journalistic career he lamented the loss of innocence in the Olympic movement as commercial interests took hold, specifically in the context of the Dassler brothers who were making their fortunes from footwear (Adidas and Puma) and other sporting apparel. Then he and John Disley (his long-time sporting and business partner) went down much the same track themselves and reaped financial rewards, especially after the London Marathon proved such a huge success.

This led to yet more irony and more conflict – a hard-hitting journalist suing professional competitors for defamation!! In essence, CB and JD had been accused by sections of the media of lining their own pockets inappropriately having regard to the charitable status of the London Marathon and its reliance on hundreds of unpaid volunteers. Not surprisingly, they wanted to clear their names and, after a long legal battle, were vindicated, winning substantial damages. To complete the circle of irony, many of the allegedly ill-gotten gains were ploughed back into the philanthropic activities on which CB’s passion was by now centred.

From my own perspective, the book is an enjoyable trip down memory lane as I was reminded of topics, incidents and characters from years gone by. However, there were also a couple of items – of commission and omission respectively – which surprised me.

First, John Disley (and by extension CB) are credited with ‘the formal foundation of … Orienteering in Britain (in) 1964’.

But this was two years after the formation of the Scottish Orienteering Association in 1962, a fact implicitly acknowledged in the text a few paragraphs later. In reality, there were three main

Australian 3 Day Orienteering Championships

Easter 2013 Bendigo Victoria Brasher leads Chataway in a Thames Hare & Hounds race.

Photo: John Disley

centres of interest in the UK in those earliest days, each effectively independent of the others. CB and JD were prime movers in Surrey in southern England, Gerry Charnley in Lancashire in northern England, and Charles Wilde in Scotland.

[As an aside, Britain’s first orienteer almost certainly came from Canberra!! The late Audun Fristad, whom many older readers will remember, was based in Scotland as an officer in the Norwegian Free Forces during WW2 and staged O-races during 1943 as training exercises in the hills behind Callander. After the war Audun migrated to Australia to work as an engineer on the Snowy Mountains hydro scheme. His memory is kept very much alive in Inverness OC, my own UK club, where the top junior each year is awarded the Audun Fristad Quaich, a trophy he presented after attending the Scottish 6 Days in 1987 as its guest of honour.]

Given its extensive coverage of CB’s love of the hills, I was also surprised that there is no mention in the book of two ‘wellkent’ names, each of whom Chris knew as both mountaineer and author. The first is Tom Patey, for whose classic “One Man’s Mountains” he (Chris) wrote a foreword after the author’s untimely death in a climbing accident in 1970. Most pertinent in the present context, Patey’s brilliantly funny anthology of essays and verse lampoons Chris as ‘Lucifer Basher’, a moniker that neatly sums up so many of the character traits described in this biography.

The second name is that of Eric Langmuir, author of “Mountaincraft and Leadership”, the definitive handbook on the subject (in Australia as well as in the UK). I last met CB at a WOC1999 gathering at Eric’s house looking out onto the Cairngorms, north of Aviemore. Soon after his death, I visited Avielochan again for a meal and, to round it off, Eric produced a cask of whisky that Chris had left with him for safe-keeping as emergency rations for his own trips to Scotland. Drawing on all his mountaincraft, Eric (who sadly also died of cancer just two years later) persuaded me that we should not let the whisky go to waste now that CB no longer needed it. So we drank a reflective toast to a man ‘whose reach exceeded his grasp’ – and to his sublime taste in malts.

easterorienteering2013.com.au

Day 3 – 1985 map

Day 2

Australian 3 Day Orienteering Championships

Congratulations to John Bryant on an excellent piece of work. I came to the book knowing for the most part what I expected to read in it and was not disappointed. I commend the book to all AO readers – and especially to the less long in the tooth. They will learn from its pages the story of a truly remarkable man. As CB himself put it (in the foreword above): “what is a man if he does not explore himself; if he does not challenge the impossible?”

DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 23

How I met your mother.

Maggie Jones – ONSW Communications

Spring is in the air and all across our nation orienteers hearts turn to thoughts of...the Australian Championships of course!

But as well as revealing our best game it appears that the Championships also bring us out at our most attractive.

Nick Dent, Head Orienteering Coach of ONSW, horrified the Australian Schools Honour roll last year when he pointed out that not only had the Honour Roll produced some of Australia’s best internationals, including Julian Dent, Kathryn Ewels, and Hanny Allston, but that it had also produced some interesting love matches too. “Jo Allison and David Shepherd are even having the next generation of elites, with the arrival of little Roy,” was the comment which made all the young orienteers view the after-presentation disco with more trepidation than normal.

But it does appear that Orienteering is a tight knit community and once an athlete has reached the level of commitment which causes them to travel internationally for their races, that only an Orienteering partner will do. A life choice in more ways than one. Here are some lovely stories of how partners met around the map.

The maps were still being pored over after Jukola, the Finnish 7-man night relay, when Stephen Craig, from NSW, and his Swedish wife Martina, met on the boat back to Sweden.

Stephen was up in Scandinavia studying for a PhD in Atmospheric Science, and was taking a break from the brain work to run in the forests

of Finland. “I’d seen her around and liked the look of her, but it wasn’t until after the Jukola that a club mate from OK Ravinen introduced us.”

Liking the look of your future partner is clearly something important to orienteers. In an ONSW survey recently undertaken some 78% of respondents rated ‘looks good in Trimtex’ as one of the top three attributes they look for in a life partner. Also important was being a ‘good conversationalist on long car journeys’, although it seems the car itself is not something that is appealing. ‘Owning a 4WD’ was the characteristic ranked lowest for pulling power.

Unsurprisingly, the ‘ability to read a map’ was one of the top essentials if we are looking to tie the knot.

It wasn’t only the prospective partners who needed to read a map when it came to ACT orienteers Liz Abbot and Bruce Bowen’s wedding. Their love of all things Orienteering was reflected in their wedding invitation which was printed on the back of a map. The important wedding nuptials over, guests were then invited to run a ‘Marriage O’ course around the bush near their home. Wily Bruce had ensured that there was no need to delay their departure on honeymoon to collect controls though – all the control sites were scavenger hunt style questions.

Bruce Bowen and Liz Abbott (discussing route choices at the Australian Champs in Tasmania)

Stephen Craig and family (at Sydney Metro League at Mount Annan in OK Ravinen club colours) 24 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

Adrian and Robin Uppill of South Australia didn’t so much meet around a map as build a family around one. Both technical types, he is a valuer, she is a geologist, they were looking for something to engage their newly discovered free time after finishing their degrees. “Adrian discovered Orienteering 32 years ago, and being a geology major myself and fond of maps I found it intriguing too,” says Robin. Not only are the Uppills now stalwarts of the South Australian scene, with Adrian Chair of the South Australia Mapping Committee and Robin South Australia Orienteering website co-ordinator, but their children are also keen orienteers. Their youngest son, Simon Uppill, is probably the best known outside his own State, having represented Australia at three Junior World Orienteering Championships and four World Orienteering Championships including 2012.

Adrian and Robin Uppill (watching the Australian Champs relays)

Susanne Casanova and Lachlan Hallett

Another 2012 WOC competitor, Susanne Casanova, from the Northern Territory, met her partner Lachlan Hallett whilst training in South Australia. Although they were from different clubs, they shared the same running coach, Kay Haarsma, and realised soon that they shared more than that.

“I discovered that Lachlan had real partner potential when we were planning to go to the Jukola. He was able to tell me how we would get to the race, knowing which bus we would need to catch and the platform it would leave from. This level of organisational ability, before things were so readily available on the internet, was the clincher for me,” says Susanne.

Travelling together and orienteering together seems to help build long term partnerships. Jo Allison comes from an Orienteering family and started orienteering ‘in utero’ in Victoria, before moving to Canberra. The proximity of the NSW and ACT events meant that Jo and David Shepherd (NSW) saw each other at lots of events early on. As their skills blossomed they spent much of their teenage years and early twenties together on Orienteering teams, State, National and International. Sharing an interest so intensely clearly set these two up as future partners and not just at the WOC. Of course, David’s tall handsomeness and Jo’s friendly good looks may also have had a part to play.

RSVP, the online dating system, claims that its method of matching partners is responsible for 8,000 marriages, 900 babies and 8% of long term relationships in Australia. What Orienteering is responsible for in the same space is not known, but looking around at the new crops of juniors and junior elites, it seems that Orienteering has successful dating methods of its own.

Jo Allison, David Shepherd, Roy and new baby Louis (at NSW State League #10 Belanglo Forest)

DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 25

MARKETING O

The Media Ian Jessup, ONSW Marketing Officer marketing@onsw.asn.au

Before I add to Maggie Jones’ article in the previous magazine (AO-Sept 2012 - “Clues to Membership Surge in NSW”), I’d like you all to ponder something: what exactly constitutes ‘marketing’ when it comes to Orienteering?

I see marketing our sport as comprising three stages, each as important as the other. And within each stage there are many smaller components: (1) Before the event:

• Media

• Gyms / sports stores.

• Outdoor / clothing / camping stores.

• Council websites / libraries / community centres.

• Schools / vacation care centres.

• Up-to-date information on club and State Association websites.

(2) At the event:

• Directional signs in surrounding streets.

• Clearly visible helpers (in fluoro bibs or club colours).

• A simple, streamlined registration process.

• On the course: Is the map correct? Are the controls in the exact locations? Are the control descriptions accurate and easily understood?

• Debriefing new people / first-timers.

Contact List Having been a journo for 20 years with AAP, the first thing I did (for ONSW) was to start compiling a spreadsheet of media contacts across the State, divided according to club (email me if you would like a copy to amend for your State). This list now has more than 140 entries, including northern NSW where we are looking to expand. It includes the name of the media outlet, the phone number for the sports section, the best email address, the publication day(s), deadlines for submitting copy, and the suburbs/areas covered.

This contact list is kept with a whole host of our media/comms files on Dropbox, accessible to the relevant ONSW officers and Board members so that they are not just stored on one person’s computer.

Realistically, your best chance of getting media coverage is through suburban community newspapers. Many of these only come out once or twice a week so you need to send information to them at least 10 days in advance for pre-publicity.

And local papers love covering schoolkids, so alert them to your local schools championships. If they don’t run an article they may post a photo gallery on their website.

And don’t dismiss community radio – their demographic reflects that of the Orienteering community. Our sport appeals to brain as much as to brawn!

Send news, not fluff When I was a sub-editor on the sports desk at AAP, we used to groan when a PR person from a minor sporting organisation sent in 800 words on something that we would have to totally rewrite and cut to 100 words. Safe to say that those pieces were left until last and often never saw the light of day.

The less the subs have to change your copy the better, so try to write it like a newspaper article – state the who, what, where and how up front and do NOT write it like a chapter book (in the first minute of the game Joe Blow passed the ball to etc..)

The content should resemble a pyramid – all the most important info at the top, padded out with less crucial info and quotes below, so that the sub-editor can cut anywhere and know that what is in the top section (to be run in the paper) makes sense and does not omit important information. An analogy from cards would be to lead your trumps first!

(3) After the event:

Instant success!

• Update the website quickly (ideally within 24 hours) with results, photos, splits, a report, the map and Routegadget.

Our first press release was about the looming 2011 QB III June long weekend and State League carnival near Lithgow. This generated a newspaper article and three radio interviews.

• Send results (and possibly a brief report) to local media, and to AAP for State League and MetrOLeague events.

• Send new member data to head office ASAP. Club / State body to send follow-up email / welcome pack to new member ASAP.

• Add new member to weekly state email.

Many of the regional NSW clubs have excellent regular contact with their local press (paper, radio and TV). This is ideal as the press love to have a local contact. However when a State League or major event is in the area I supplement the local club’s work by sending a press release to all concerned. All the ONSW clubs are aware that Maggie and I work for them and if they require our assistance then they only have to ask. We hope that our work also empowers the clubs to feel more confident in taking on such promotional duties.

Does your club / State body do each of the above?

While many of the above tasks may sound like something the event organiser should handle, in a tiny sport like ours each one of them contributes to how we market Orienteering to the public.

In this article I would like to talk about that all-powerful beast the media.

26 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

In the Sydney metropolitan region, I also aim to list all club events on the relevant local community newspaper website in their events section (these often make it into print as well). I cannot stress enough how important it is that we emphasise just how inclusive our sport is (age ranges, ability levels, etc) in every such press release or event listing, and that newcomers are always welcome and will receive basic coaching prior to setting out on a course.

But it’s not all good news MEDIA RELEASE 18 September 2012 SOOTHE THE SOUL

– WITH A COOL EVE

NING WORKOUT FOR MIND AND BODY Are you looking for an organised walk or run after work, in which fancy, in a social atm you go at your own osphere, through par pace, wherever you ks and reserves, and look no further than for half the cost of mos the new Southern Syd t ‘fun runs’? Then ney Summer Series.

Organised by member clubs of Orienteering NSW, the Southern on most Monday afte Sydney Summer Ser rnoons/evenings from ies will take place October 15 to Decemb First-timers will rece ive free entry into a er 10 inclusive. subsequent event in You can start any time the series. between 4.30-6.45pm as you can (in any ord and have 45 minutes in which to visit as man er) before returning to the start. Navigation y checkpoints a street directory, you is of an easy standar can do it. d: if you can read The checkpoints are marked on specially prepared orienteering sq km and the fastest maps. The map typi athletes can run up cally covers about 2 to 10km in the 45 min Participants range in utes. Walkers usually age cover 2-4km. groups, and basic inst from 8 to 80 and cover all fitness levels.

You are welcome to ruction is available. go The cost per event – $17 for a non-membe $10 for an orienteering solo or in r (including electron ic timi club member or duathlons, triathlons and corporate-sponsore ng stick hire) - compares favourably with fun runs, d fitness events.

The Southern Sydney Sum (www.sydneysummerse mer Series is an expansion of the pop ular Sydney Summer ries.com.au) and has Series Sports Commission. been made possible thanks to support from the Australian The 2012 Southern Sydney Summer Ser ies dates are: Oct 15 Rob (Sun) Centennial Par k; Oct 29 Mackey Par ertson Park, Watson s Bay; Oct 21 k, Mar Scarborough Park, Kog arah; Nov 26 Rudd Par rickville; Nov 12 Arthur Byrne Res, Maroub ra; Nov 19 k, Belfield; Dec 10 Don nellan Circuit Res, Clo velly.

For further information

please contact:

Ian Jessup ONSW Marketing Offi cer Mobile 0416 040 135 Email marketing@onsw.asn.a u

One of the drawbacks of trying to promote the sport is the attitude of some in the media to Orienteering.

Prior to this year’s National League weekend in Newcastle I emailed a press release to media in the Hunter area. Closer to the event I rang one of the Newcastle Herald senior sports journos, an old mate from my rugby league-covering days.

His reply took me aback: “Mate, it’s not really a sport, more an outdoor hobby… I’ll put you through to our lifestyle features guy.” Hmmm.

Fortunately, Craig Hamilton from ABC Radio, another former rugby league and cricket contact, was more accommodating and interviewed Russell Blatchford live on the Saturday morning before the Sprint at the University.

And we have to accept that we cannot micromanage how the media ends up portraying us.

We attracted a photographer from the Bathurst newspaper to a State League event in early September. One of the journos rang me on the Tuesday afterwards for some background info for a story to go with the pics.

A week later I still had not seen the article on their website so I rang him: they hadn’t considered the story important enough to go on the web, but he did email me a PDF of the article. In it he described Orienteering as ‘this slightly obscure but intriguing sport’.

To be fair, he is right on both counts. It’s up to us to highlight the intriguing bit.

What’s our USP?

Word gets around This year one small article / listing in a Penrith paper promoting one of WHO’s Cunning Running series (and mentioning the age range of competitors as 8-80) was noticed by a young female producer of 2UE’s drivetime sports show. She told her presenter John Stanley and within 48 hours I was being interviewed for 5 minutes about Orienteering: who takes part, what it involves etc. This may or may not lead to a huge influx of newcomers but it is publicity that our sport simply could never afford to buy.

How much is it worth? Go to the website of any major radio station and find out the cost of a 15-second ad? Then multiply it by 20.

Our Sydney Summer Series each Wednesday evening from October to March attracts around 200 people to each event. This year we are expanding into areas of southern and western Sydney, fortnightly on Mondays from October to December. Within a week of issuing a press release and flyer about these new series I had fielded five phone calls from various local papers seeking phone interviews or to set up a photo shoot prior to or at an event.

Do not hesitate to offer a complementary entry to your local journo(s) or photographer(s) – not as an incentive to cover the sport, obviously (we don’t want to be on Media Watch!); but to showcase what we have to offer.

In any marketing course you will quickly learn that a product has to have a unique sales point / pitch / proposition (USP). If your product does not stand out from the others it will not sell.

What is Orienteering’s USP? (This could comprise a whole new article!)

I think it’s the fact that you take part on a course that suits your skill and fitness level, and at a pace that suits you; all in lovely environments; by yourself or in a group. Not many sports or leisure activities can match that.

Other sales pitches you could use are; “Much more fun than a run”, “Think on your feet (or seat for MTBO)”, “Can you think AND run (or ride)?”

For the non-sporty, highlight the thinking skills needed.

For the environmentally aware, put the emphasis on the natural aspects of our sport.

Our ONSW media page www. onsw.asn.au/index.php/mediacoverage lists many of the hits we have had in the past 18 months.

We’re not the NRL or AFL – we have to generate our own press coverage and we have to work hard to attract new members and participants. Above all, be open, be welcoming, and emphasise our inclusiveness.

DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 27

URBAN RACING

Just how good was that Sprint (or Urban) race?

David May (SLOW-UK, and IOF Senior Event Adviser) – adapted from presentations given at the July 2012 IOF course planning seminar in Lausanne and at the September 2012 Event Officials’ Conference in Warwick University.

W

hether you’re the planner, controller or a humble competitor, your enjoyment of any Sprint or Urban race depends more upon its quality than on anything else; but what do we mean by quality? I think the answer lies in two factors – terrain and planning.

In Britain, BOF Event Guideline D (Sprint Distance Events) tells us something about what terrain to use “very runnable park or urban (streets/buildings) terrain. Occasionally, some fast runnable forest may be included”.

Points

Urban

Non Urban

0

Little or no route choice

Simple leg with minimal navigation needed

1

Two similar routes, easy to identify

Easy route choice leg with little technical detail

2

Several possible routes, or one longer route which is complex to execute – thinking needed

Route choices not immediately obvious and/or some technical challenge

3

Complex route choice/detailed navigation needed – many decision points

Complex route choice/ detailed navigation needed

The Table describes how the technical challenge of each leg can be quantified on a four point scale (0 to 3). Urban and non-Urban have different types of challenge so the Table is divided into two columns accordingly. Examples of each quality are given next (for Urban only):-

Quality 0 example (#12 – #13) “Little or no route choice”

However, the focus of this article is on planning quality and I’ll take it as read that the relevant terrain is of appropriate standard.

Again, the BOF Sprint Guideline gives good advice about planning: •A verage leg lengths must be short, 120m to 180m being typical.

•H ave frequent changes of direction (small crossover loops are good).

Quality 1 example (#9 – #10) “Two similar routes, easy to identify” (left or right of the building just south of #10)

•L ong legs may be set, as long as their execution involves a high rate of decision making along the way.

•D og legs can provide good challenges too; but avoid the possibility that they may cause clashes between incoming and outgoing runners if space is restricted.

•A im to make every leg pose a route choice challenge, especially in urban terrain. Control sites will often have to be positioned with great care in order to achieve this.

But how easy is it for planners and controllers to check whether these aims are achieved? When we plan or control forest courses we can check the technical level of each course using the well established BOF Technical Difficulty tables, but there is no equivalent at Sprint/Urban level … until now!

Having been involved at IOF level in assessing and approving well over 100 Sprint courses, it became clear that some sort of quality measure would be helpful so the following scale was then devised:

28 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

Quality 2 examples (#13 – #14 and #14 – #15) “Several possible routes, or one longer route which is complex to execute – thinking needed”

Quality 3 example (Start – #1) “Complex route choice/detailed navigation needed – many decision points”

A good Sprint course should have a large number of legs (“average leg lengths must be short”) and it will have much route choice and change of direction too, so both leg quantity and leg quality are involved thus the total mark for a course gives a good measure of its overall quality.

It is early days yet, but a total score of over 20 correlates well with courses which are rated as enjoyable and challenging.

Under 15 and the course will probably not be.

So, how can this tool be used? Firstly, planners can rate each course they produce to maximise their scores (obviously, where a suite of courses of different lengths is being planned, scores must be adjusted pro rata by length before comparing them).

And of course, controllers can use the tool to judge courses for quality, armed with a quantitative way of advising planners on possible improvements.

Try this for yourselves – rate Course 1 at the 2008 JK Sprint according to the criteria above. Five legs have been done for you already in the examples above! Answers below.

Answers: 1 (3); 2 (2); 3 (2); 4 (0); 5 (1); 6 (1), 7 (2); 8 (1); 9 (3); 10 (1); 11 (2); 12 (1); 13 (0); 14 (2); 15 (2); 16 (1); 17 (2); 18 (1); 19 (1): 20 (0); Total score = 28.

The similarity with Technical Difficulty rating for forest courses ends here as the next step is to sum the “marks” for each leg to arrive at a grand total for the course. The bigger the sum, the “better” the course – a rash statement possibly, but one with a good deal of truth in it as a large sum comes from both leg quantity and leg quality.

DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 29

BIG MISTAKES

How could it happen?

The most successful orienteer in the history of the sport is surely Switzerland’s Simone Niggli. Coming into the 2012 World Championships she had already won an unprecedented 24 World Championship medals, including 17 gold. And there was the distinct possibility of a Niggli clean sweep at WOC 2012 in her home country, repeating her achievement in 2003, the last time Switzerland had hosted WOC. Simone Niggli throws her map in disgust as she finishes the Middle final. Photo: Suunnistaja

H

er campaign started off well with a win in the Sprint Final by a very comfortable margin of over 36sec. But it all unravelled in the Middle Distance Final when, inexplicably, she ran from control #7 towards #15, losing 2min 34sec to Finland’s Minna Kauppi, the eventual winner, on that leg. Simone Niggli never managed to make up that lost time, eventually finishing in 5th place, still 2min 23sec down on Kauppi. Even legends of the sport can make bad mistakes on an Orienteering course.

Niggli went on to win gold in the Long Distance and Relay events, taking her lifetime gold medal tally to 20, but the clean sweep on home terrain could have been oh so much sweeter.

Simone Niggli’s route from #7 to #8 via #15

Niggli wins Long Distance. Photo: Suunnistaja 30 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

Finland’s Minna Kauppi storms to victory. Photo: Suunnistaja

Simone Niggli celebrates a win with the Swiss Relay team.

Photo: Suunnistaja

Simone Niggli wins the Sprint at WOC 2012

Simone Niggli’s amazing medal record at World Championships Year

Host country

Long Distance

Middle Distance

Sprint

Relay

2001

Finland

Gold

2003

Switzerland

Gold

2004

Sweden

2005

Japan

Gold

Gold

Gold

Gold

2006

Denmark

Gold

Gold

Silver

Bronze

2007

Ukraine

Bronze

Gold

Gold

2009

Hungary

Gold

Bronze

Bronze

2010

Norway

Gold

Silver

Gold

2012

Switzerland

Gold

Bronze Gold

Gold

Gold

Gold

Gold

Gold

DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 31

2012 WORLD MTBO CHAMPIONSHIPS – HUNGARY

World MTBO Champs

by Peter Cusworth and Ian Dalton

Heath Jamieson heading to the Long Qualification finish.

Photo: Peter Cusworth

Hungary were hosts for the 2012 MTBO World Championships in and around the university city of Veszprém. For several years now the Junior and Elite Champs have been held together, but for the first time, Hungary took on the extra task of running Masters world champs at the same event as well.

T

he Australian team assembled in Budapest for a training camp a week before the champs. We stayed at a youth camp in the spectacular Buda hills overlooking Budapest with most of the training maps being within riding distance of the camp. The terrain was a bit different from what we later experienced at the championships, being mostly forest and a lot hillier, but they were good maps and some great riding along forest trails. It gave us all a chance to aclimatise to being in Europe, apart from Melanie, who lives in Norway and had made her way to Hungary via a biking holiday in Crete.

After arriving in the charming old city of Veszprém, around 120km west of Budapest, the final training map and the model event gave us a taste of what was in store for the champs week. A much more undulating terrain and lots of open grassland. Unlike in Australia, in Hungary you are permitted to ride off tracks, through the forest, if you think that’s a good idea, but more importantly for these events, across the undulating grassland,

Chris Firman was our “rider of the meet” with a 5th in the Middle, 12th in the Long and was 2nd on the first leg of the Relay.

Photo: Peter Cusworth

as many controls were placed well away from tracks on subtle contour features. This had team members thinking more about their rusty foot O skills, with control descriptions showing unusual for MTBO symbols like pit, gully, embankment, saddle, thicket etc. A good compass might be handy.

Several of the maps used special military land not open to the public that had been used as such from back in Austro-Hungarian Empire days, through Soviet times and now for NATO tank training. The organisers had managed to get access to this land for this once off use and riders were told in no uncertain terms NOT to ever come back again or they could not guarantee what would happen to you. We were not to take photos out on the course and there were also observers out in the field. The Long map was named “Battlefield”.

Long Qualification Competition week started with weather forecasts predicting a week of hot weather. The qualification race was held in around 36º with much of the map being open country, so not much shade.

The team about to head out to a training event at Budapest. From left: Ricky Thackray (WA), Heath Jamieson (Vic), Chris Firman (Qld), Marc Gluskie (Tas), Steve Cusworth (Vic), Melanie Simpson (NSW), Tom Goddard (Tas), Karl Withers (Qld), Oscar Phillips (Tas), Ian Dalton - Coach (WA).

32 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

Steve Cusworth had an early start but worked hard and cleanly to finish 12th and gain an entry into the A final. Oscar Phillips and Ricky Thackray just missed out on qualifying as they were both caught out by the intricate nature of the tracks and also the heat which took its toll towards the end of their courses.

•••• Austrian Tobias Breitschädel’s Gold Medal route in Men’s Elite.

With riding off track permitted in Hungary, competitor’s routes through the grassland looked more like a foot O event.

The spaghetti like tracks on this map are thin motorcycle tracks that in many cases, don’t go anywhere.

In the Juniors Tom Goddard had a great ride placing second in his heat. Chris Firman battled with the heat and managed to place 16th in his heat. Marc Gluskie managed to scrape through to the A final after struggling with the conditions. Karl Withers, at his first Junior WOC, managed to qualify for the A final by placing 28th in his heat. Heath Jamieson unfortunately mispunched.

Melanie Simpson placed third in her heat which gave her a good starting position for the final.

Sprint Distance The Sprint had many controls off tracks. The track network was thick through generally open grassland. It was imperative to stay in contact with the map, and small navigational mishaps could quickly become confusing. This was reflected in the results which were unusually spread out for a sprint race. It was again very hot.

Marc learnt from his difficulties yesterday and rode into 16th place, a little under 7 minutes off the winner, Grigory Medvedev (RUS). Karl made some small errors but placed a promising 27th.

Chris made some early errors, however and couldn’t recover from them. Tom and Heath were disappointed with some substantial

errors in the complex network of tracks and open ridable areas.

They finished in 45th and 54th respectively.

After two top twenty finishes in previous World Champs Sprint races, Steve Cusworth had the added pressure of carrying a GPS tracker this time. Spectators at the finish could follow the leading contenders on big screens showing the map and their position throughout the course. This was also being streamed live on the internet so folks anywhere around the world can see how you are going. Unfortunately Steve made a large error on the 5th control but navigated well with good pace for the rest of the race.

He is recorded as a ‘’mp’’ after one of the controls failed to read his SI-stick and then his back up punch strip fell out of his map board. Apparently, some units have been affected by the heat and either failed or took a long time to record.

The women’s race was won by Christine Schaffner (SUI) and silver went to Emily Benham of Great Britain. Anna Kaminska (POL), gold medalist in 2010, got the bronze medal. Mel was disappointed with her race after a combination of poor route choice early and confusing herself with a control in a parallel gully through the middle of the course.

DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 33

2012 WORLD MTBO CHAMPIONSHIPS – HUNGARY Sprint

Middle Distance Chris Firman (Qld) made history by being Australia’s first individual JWOC MTBO podium placegetter with his 5th place. He was an early starter and actually was leading until the last starting group came through with some faster times. The winner Czech’s Krystof Bogar was a dual gold medal winner in 2011.

All our other junior boys raced well also, showing tremendous fitness on the fast, physical course and in very hot conditions.

Melanie Simpson had a top 20 finish in the Long.

Photo: Vivien Kiss

Melanie Simpson also rode excellently being just 4 minutes from a medal although in 23rdplace.

Overshooting a turn-off to control 8 cost her almost two and a half minutes, but other than that she was riding as fast as the top women. Switzerland’s Ursini Jaggi won her first gold medal.

With the courses being more physical than technical, and relatively few route choice headaches, it was no surprise that the stronger male riders dominated the medals. Finland’s Samuli Saarela added another gold to his collection ahead of Russian speedster Anton Foliforov, whilst there was a tie for 3rd place. Steve Cusworth was our best but had a variety of mistakes that interrupted his flow.

After the great performances by our junior boys in the middle distance there were high hopes of a medal in the relay. They certainly gave it a great shot and were in 2nd place through legs one and two before some terrain collywobbles got to Tom Goddard on leg 3 and he slipped back to 8th.

Our elite men’s team were led out by first time elite Oscar Phillips and he did pretty well finishing just on 6 minutes down, although in 15th. Ricky Thackray had probably his best ride so far and did a similar time and got the team back in 10th and Steve Cusworth managed to peg back another team to give us 9th overall.

The Long Final courses took competitors through forest tracks to military grassland and then through the streets and lanes of Veszprém before finishing in the town square. Most courses were given two maps at the start and then a third when entering town and took riders through two tunnels and over a narrow bridge.

Steve Cusworth finishing the Long Qual.

Photo: Vivien Kiss

Chris Firman put in another fine performance placing 12th. Tom Goddard was in 7th about 75% of the way around his course but suffered more bad luck with a flat resulting in a long run in to the finish.

34 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

24:45 24:47 24:59 34:51 35:49

SUI GBR POL NZL NZL AUS

21:45 22:07 22:33 28:34 31:52 33:52

RUS HUN FIN AUS AUS AUS AUS AUS

22:32 22:48 24:06 29:27 32:53 34:53 38:03 44:44

FIN RUS FIN AUS AUS AUS

50:49 51:42 51:46 62:54 67:09 67:22

SUI FIN DEN AUS NZL NZL

46:40 47:35 48:42 52:26 57:25 66:50

CZE EST RUS AUS AUS AUS AUS AUS

41:25 42:05 42:17 43:22 45:06 46:18 49:51 50:55

Long Distance

Long Distance Final

Ruslan Gritsan (Russia) pulled off a 16 second victory after starting last and storming home over the last kilometres. Finn Samuli Saarela, who finished 4th, just a minute down, had the misfortune to get a puncture in the closing stages.

AUT CZE RUS AUS AUS

Middle Distance M21 1 Samuli Saarela 2 Anton Foliforov 3 Samuel Pökälä 68 Steven Cusworth 79 Oscar Phillips 80 Richard Thackray W21 1 Ursina Jäggi 2 Ingrid Stengard 3 Nina Hoffmann 23 Melanie Simpson 42 Marquita Gelderman 58 Christine Browne M20 1 Krystof Bogar 2 Taaniel Tooming 3 Grigory Medvedev 5 Chris Firman 13 Tom Goddard 21 Marc Gluskie 32 Heath Jamieson 36 Karl Withers

Relay

In the elites Melanie Simpson raced well placing 20th, again fantastically close to the top, being just 4 minutes off the podium in a tightly packed field. Kiwi Marquita Gelderman followed on from her sprint 25th with an 18th place. Finn Susanna Laurila added an individual gold to her relay gold medal. Steven Cusworth had his best result of the week with 27th.

M21 1 Tobias Breitschädel 2 Marek Pospisek 3 Ruslan Gritsan 58 Oscar Phillips 65 Richard Thackray W21 1 Christine Schaffner 2 Emily Benham 3 Anna Kaminska 25 Marquita Gelderman 39 Christine Browne 46 Melanie Simpson M20 1 Grigory Medvedev 2 Marcell Horváth 3 Kare Kaskinen 16 Marc Gluskie 27 Karl Withers 35 Chris Firman 45 Tom Goddard 54 Heath Jamieson

M21 1 Ruslan Gritsan 2 Juho Saarinen 3 Samuel Pökälä 27 Steven Cusworth W21 1 Susanna Laurila 2 Ksenia Chernykh 3 Marika Hara 18 Marquita Gelderman 20 Melanie Simpson 52 Christine Browne M20 1 Bogar Krystof 2 Maišelis Jonas 3 Ludvik Vojtech 12 Firman Chris 31 Goddard Tom 32 Withers Karl 37 Gluskie Marc

RUS 90:41 FIN 90:57 FIN 91:34 AUS 103:58 FIN 77:27 RUS 77:50 FIN 79:15 NZL 84:55 AUS 85:31 NZL 110:49 CZE 73:35 LTU 77:54 CZE 78:02 AUS 81:52 AUS 95:50 AUS 96:02 AUS 101:03

Relay

Marc Gluskie had a fantastic ride in the Relay.

Photo: Peter Cusworth

M21 1 Finland 1 2 Russia 1 3 Austria 1 9 Australia 1 Oscar Phillips 52:58 Richard Thackray 52:28 Steven Cusworth 49:37 M20 1 Czech 1 2 Finland 1 3 Russia 2 8 Australia 1 Chris Firman 44:39 Marc Gluskie 39:40 Tom Goddard 62:12

136:04 136:47 137:06 155:03

121:12 126:06 132:23 155:03

WORLD MASTERS MTBO CHAMPIONSHIPS

Gold and 2 Silver medals for Carolyn Jackson

T

he Australian flag was hoisted for the medal presentation on three occasions in Hungary, each for Carolyn Jackson’s World Masters MTBO medals. Between 1 and 2 minutes was all that separated Carolyn and her main rival in W50, Britain’s Charlotte Somers-Cocks in each of the three distances in Hungary.

Carolyn won the Middle distance first up but Charlotte held a slight edge in both the Sprint and Long distance championships.

Carolyn had a very brief trip to Hungary just for the championships arriving in Budapest from Australia just three days before the first race. She then had the unfortunate news that the airline had lost her bike, so she was without her bike until just before the first race. Despite this she managed to ride well in each race to claim the first three World Masters MTBO medals won by Australia. Well done Carolyn!

New Zealand’s Rob Garden won a similar haul of medals in M60, one gold and two silver, to the same Czech competitor.

So it was good to see the Aussie and Kiwi flags getting good use at the medal ceremonies.

Other Masters – Middle M40 Bruce Paterson M50 Peter Cusworth

Dave Armstrong

Richard Robinson M60 Rob Garden

Michael Wodd W50 Vivian Prince Other Masters – Sprint M50 Richard Robinson

Peter Cusworth

Dave Armstrong M60 Rob Garden

Michael Wodd W50 Tamsin Barnes W50 Vivian Prince

Carolyn Cusworth Other Masters – Long M40 Bruce Paterson M50 Peter Cusworth

Richard Robinson

Dave Armstrong M60 Rob Garden

Michael Wodd W50 Tamsin Barnes W50 Vivian Prince

VIC VIC NZ QLD NZ NZ NZ

40th 23rd 34th 40th 1st 14th 8th

Carolyn during the Masters Sprint race.

Carolyn on the podium with her gold medal.

Photo: Vivien Kiss

W50 Middle 1 Carolyn Jackson AUS 40:21 2 Charlotte Somers-Cocks GBR 41:37 3 Ursula Häusermann SUI 43:23

W50 Sprint 1 Charlotte Somers-Cocks GBR 23:57 2 Carolyn Jackson AUS 25:14 3 Angela Brand-Barker GBR 26:21

W50 Long 1 Charlotte Somers-Cocks GBR 61:22 2 Carolyn Jackson AUS 63:24 3 Ursula Häusermann SUI 64:50

QLD 25th VIC 37th NZ 42nd NZ 2nd NZ 16th QLD 9th NZ 9th VIC 13th VIC VIC QLD NZ NZ NZ QLD NZ

36th 19th 26th 35th 2nd 7th 11th 5th

Carolyn at the final control of the Long in Vesprem. Photo: Murray Withers A section of the Master Sprint map – W50 course. 1:10,000 5m contours

New Zealand’s Rob Garden, a regular visitor and winner at major Australian MTBO events, also had a successful World Masters taking one gold and two silver medals. Photo: Vivien Kiss

DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 35

AUSTRALIAN MTBO CHAMPIONSHIPS At the start.

Photo: Bill Vandendool

NSW first claims state title T

Kay Haarsma

he three event Australian MTBO Championships were run 26-28 October at Taree, NSW. The Sprint and Middle maps were based in Kiwarrak Forest just a few kilometres out of Taree.

The area comprised an intricate network of mountain bike single track and 4WD tracks which actually provided quite fast riding and challenged the navigational skills of even the best riders. The Long race was held on Saturday in the Cairncross State Forest near Port Macquarie.

New Zealand’s Marquita Gelderman reigned supreme over the weekend in women’s elite to take out a trifecta of wins. However fellow Kiwi Christine Browne, rode well to finish a close second, with Carolyn Jackson coming third in each race.

Men’s elite saw an exciting race with veteran Aussie rep Alex Randall having a narrow 50 second win in the Middle over NSW’s Steven Todkill, who is better known for his foot O exploits. Steven had an impressive carnival winning the Sprint and finishing 2nd behind Alex in the other two races. WA’s Ricky Thackray again had to be content with third, but that result secured him the M21 National League title for the second year running.

There were four other riders who won all three titles on offer over the weekend. These were: Gabrielle Withers (W14), Chris Firman (M20), Peter Swanson (M40) and Graeme Cadman (M80).

Chris Firman perhaps was the most dominant rider of the carnival, excelling in all the variable terrain. It was a Queensland trifecta in the junior boys in the Middle with Chris winning by 8 minutes from Karl Withers and Paulo Jun Alvear Fujii. In the junior girls Sally-Anne Henderson (NSW) took her second win of the carnival.

Many thanks to David West for his amazing co-ordination of this 3 day carnival of races, and to the Mountain

Devils members and other volunteers who made the events run smoothly. The large Kiwi contingent of 17 riders had plenty of praise for the races and like every rider, thought that the single tracks in Kiwarrak Forest produced one of the finest maps they had ridden on.

The final triumph for all NSW’s efforts was to see the OA State Shield move north for the first time – 1st NSW (116), 2nd Victoria (103), 3rd Queensland (86) – in the closest competition in the 15- year history of MTBO in Australia. NSW domination of Included in a stong contingent from NZ was the Masters Men classes (M21- to Peter Swanson who won all three M40 titles.

M70-) proved decisive despite strong Photo: Bruce Paterson performances from Victoria’s women.

Full results, photos and reports can be found on www.ausmtbochamps.com Gabrielle Withers (Qld) a clear winner in W14.

Photo: Bruce Paterson

Carolyn Jackson during the Long race.

Photo: Bill Vandendool

36 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

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DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 37 Arial Black 12pt spärrad +900

18/3/10 11:52:32 AM

2

ORIENTEERING AUSTRALIA

World Cup Team for NZ

World Games 2013

A selectors have chosen the following team for the World Cup events in New Zealand in January 2013. It is a pleasing mix of experience and youth.

ustralian orienteers have won one silver and two gold medals at the World Games in the past ten years. Grant Bluett won gold in 2001 and Hanny Allston won gold and silver in 2009 at the most recent World Games. But, in Colombia next year, Australia will have no representatives at the World Games Orienteering events. Only one position for Oceania countries is available and New Zealand has outperformed Australia in recent international competitions.

O

WOMEN Bridget Anderson Felicity Brown Susanne Casanova Grace Crane Rachel Effeney Lauren Gillis Laurina Neumann Jasmine Neve Mace Neve Aislinn Prendergast Kathryn Preston Anna Sheldon Heather Muir MEN Bruce Arthur # Evan Barr # Lachlan Dow Julian Dent Bryan Keely Ian Lawford Oscar McNulty Chris Naunton Max Neve Ollie Poland Rob Preston Dave Shepherd Simon Uppill

QLD NSW SA/NT TAS QLD SA QLD VIC VIC VIC VIC QLD QLD

VIC VIC ACT NSW VIC ACT/VIC WA NSW VIC ACT NSW ACT SA

Middle Y Y Y Y Y

Prologue Y Y Y Y n/a

RES Y Y Y Y Y

Sprint Y Y Y Y Y RES --Y Y Y Y Y

Middle -Y Y Y Y Y -Y Y RES Y Y Y

Sprint Y RES Y Y Y Y Y -Y Y -Y Y

Prologue -Y Y Y Y Y -Y RES Y Y Y Y

Y Y Y Y Y Y RES

A

NATIONS Austria Brazil Czech Republic China Colombia Denmark Finland France Great Britain Hungary Latvia Lithuania New Zealand Norway Russia South Africa Sweden Switzerland Ukraine USA TOTAL – 20 Nations

WOMEN 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 3 1 2 40

MEN 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 2 2 3 2 1 2 3 -2 40

RELAY (2+2) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 -1 1 -1 18

Notes: Australia and New Zealand are can enter 10 runners per event whilst other countries are limited to 6. # = subject to fitness.

2013 National Junior Squad Boys: Matt Doyle (VIC), Ian Lawford (VIC/ACT), Shaun McDonough (TAS), Oscar McNulty (WA), Ashley Nankervis (TAS), Brodie Nankervis (TAS), Todd Neve (VIC), Oliver Poland (ACT)

Australian World Games Gold medallists – Grant Bluett and Hanny Alston

Girls: Nicola Blatchford (NSW), Michele Dawson (NSW), Jacqui Doyle (QLD), Anna Dowling (TAS), Mary Fleming (VIC), Shea-Cara Hammond (ACT), Nicola Marshall (TAS), Heather Muir (QLD), Lanita Steer (VIC)

T

2013 National Junior Development Squad Boys: Jarrah Day (TAS), Daniel Hill (NSW), Patrick Jaffe (VIC), Henry McNulty (WA), Stephen Melhuish (ACT), Oisin Stronach (TAS) Girls: Heather Burridge (QLD), Zoe Dowling (TAS), Lucy Fleming (VIC), Hannah Goddard (TAS), Winnie Oakhill (QLD), Asha Steer (VIC)

Australian Schools Team he Australian Schools Team to contest a Test Match against New Zealand at the Oceania Championships in January 2013 has been announced.

The teams are: Junior girls: Zoe Dowling (TAS), Hannah Goddard (TAS), Georgia Jones (NSW), Asha Steer (VIC). Reserve #1 Leisha Maggs (VIC), Reserve #2 Rebecca George (NSW).

Junior boys: Jarrah Day (TAS), Daniel Hill (NSW), Stephen Melhuish (ACT), Oliver Mill (ACT). Reserve #1 Oisin Stronach (TAS), Reserve #2 Patrick Jaffe (VIC).

Senior girls: Nicola Blatchford (NSW), Michele Dawson (NSW), Anna Dowling (TAS), Lanita Steer (VIC). Reserve #1 Shea-Cara Hammond (ACT), Reserve 2 Rebecca Butler (TAS).

Senior boys: Matt Doyle (VIC), Shaun McDonough (TAS), Brodie Nankervis (TAS), Oliver Poland (ACT). Reserve #1 David Tay (QLD), Reserve #2 Will Kennedy (SA).

38 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

NUTRITION

Going “gluten-free” Gillian Woodward

A

trend which has emerged in recent years is quite a cause for concern. You would have to be ‘blind Freddie’ if you haven’t noticed all the cafes and restaurants now denoting which of their offerings are free of gluten. It seems that many people are selfdiagnosing themselves as “gluten intolerant”.

Why am I worried, you might ask? Let me try to explain.

Presuming you are experiencing an adverse reaction of some kind – maybe a skin rash or hives or gut pain, wind, bloating, diarrhoea or constipation for example – and someone has told you that gluten could be the culprit, you then cut it out of your diet. Your symptoms may be reduced but not completely gone.

Naturally you continue on the restricted diet and then proceed to look for other clues, perhaps cutting out more foods to relieve your symptoms.

There are a number of concerns with this approach to working out your ‘food intolerance’ or ‘allergy’. The first is that most people do not have an understanding about the differences between allergy and intolerance – and indeed there are many, including completely different methods of diagnosis and treatment.

most people do not have an understanding about the differences between allergy and intolerance True food allergies only affect a small minority of the population (1-3%). They are usually very obvious because the symptoms appear rapidly (within seconds or minutes most often) every time after consuming the same food. In some cases, a person only needs to breathe in the smell of the food to react adversely.

High protein foods like eggs, milk, seafood and nuts are common allergens. The immune system is involved.

Contrastingly, food intolerance can be a much slower, dose dependent reaction, which may take several days to cause symptoms. No single food is responsible; rather a combination of foods containing similar chemicals eaten over consecutive days may result in adverse symptoms. The nervous system is involved in this type of reaction: there are no immune bodies produced as in allergy. So there is no way to measure any changes in the blood. Diagnosis is by elimination diet and challenge procedure, preferably supervised by an experienced dietitian.

Secondly, if a person does have a problem with gluten, they may in fact have coeliac disease. Diagnosing this disease involves tests (both blood and biopsies) which must be conducted while the person is consuming gluten. Those who have already cut it out of the diet are often very reluctant to bring it back in for these tests as it may make them quite ill, and therefore they may not be able to get a valid diagnosis.

Thirdly, many individuals who suffer from ‘irritable bowel syndrome’ may cut out gluten and see some improvements.

However, they may be sensitive not to the gluten in bread/ wheat products but instead to small sugar molecules (part of a group called FODMAPS). These also occur in some fruits and vegetables, so often these people are not symptom-free with just the elimination of gluten. They need to seek help from a dietitian who can place them on a low FODMAP diet to determine their level of intolerance to these compounds, thus providing more complete symptom relief in the longer term.

My fourth concern is that previously, only true Coeliacs (those with a proven gluten allergy) requested gluten-free products when eating out. These people can become gravely ill very easily if they consume even the slightest amount of gluten (eg their gluten-free muffin being cut with a knife that has previously cut a glutencontaining product). So restaurant workers had (and still have) to be extremely careful when serving those with coeliac disease.

Now that so many more people are claiming they need to be ‘gluten-free’, there is a chance that the hospitality industry may be less diligent in ensuring no cross-contamination occurs. These ‘non-coeliac’, possibly gluten sensitive people, will not necessarily react very adversely straight away to accidental gluten intake, so they will possibly not experience any symptoms after eating small amounts. Seeing they don’t have to take such precautions as the true Coeliacs, their requests for gluten-free foods may not be as strictly adhered to by food providers.

So, hopefully if you are experiencing adverse symptoms (particularly in the gut) which you think may be related to food eaten, I have encouraged you to make the wise decision to seek help from a trained professional who specialises in the area of food intolerance and allergy. A list of such people can be made available to you if you contact the Dietitians Association of Australia (http://daa.asn.au). There is a special interest group of these dietitians who are experienced in diagnosing and treating these problems. This is a much safer way to find out what food/s may be causing your body distress, than you simply eliminating one food after another in a long and confusing search for the answer.

Gillian Woodward is an Accredited Practising Dietician and has been providing advice in the field for over 25 years. She has been an orienteer since 1984.

DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 39

O-SPY

I

Magazine cover photos

n recent times we’ve noticed a trend amongst Orienteering magazines worldwide towards choosing cover photos with a lighter and, sometimes, more glamorous look. Gone, at least to some extent, are the cover photos of serious-looking athletes bursting through the undergrowth often covered in mud and muck. We’ve joined the trend for this edition at least with a photo of three delightful South Australian Schools Relay runners hamming it up for the cameras. And they showed they have orienteering talent too by winning their AUS Schools Relay Championship race.

We would like your opinion on this trend – should The Australian Orienteer follow?

Please email the Editor at mikehubbert@ozemail.com. au or write to PO Box 165, Warrandyte, VIC 3113.

F

Royal orienteers

rom the Danish “Orientering” magazine comes this fascinating photo of a father showing two of his children how to find Orienteering controls at a promotional event near Copenhagen last April. Most will recognise the father, Crown Prince Frederik, and the children are Princess Isabella and Prince Christian. If only we could find such a photo opportunity in Australia.

Which direction is my thumb?

A

t the recent Australian Championships carnival, one participant couldn’t understand why the needle of her thumb compass showed North was in all kinds of different directions. After the Relays event she came back to the tent complaining that her compass wouldn’t work properly. We noticed that she had pinned up a broken thumb strap with a safety pin and that the North needle always seemed to pick out that safety pin. After we removed the pin the compass worked perfectly. The safety pin had become magnetized.

40 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

Greg’s Tagebuch

G

reg Tamblyn (BK-V) travelled to WMOC in Germany earlier this year, but his route choice was rather different from those of most participants. Greg flew to Rome, then bicycled all the way to Bad Harzburg, the host town in Germany. He arrived ahead of schedule. In fact he was the first to arrive and news soon got around of his long cycle ride. The local newspaper, the Goslarsche Zeitung, grasped the opportunity for a story with a difference and interviewed Greg about his ride. The interview turned into a daily column entitled Gregs Tagebuch (Greg’s Diary) featuring his thoughts on the day’s competition and his general impressions of life in Germany.

Each day a reporter would seek him out to record his impressions and even took Greg and Jim Russell to dinner one night.

OBITUARY

Y

Sponsor “Dictatorship” at 2012 Olympics

ou might expect that Olympic sponsors would show some sensitivity to local traditions in the Olympics host country. Yet in Britain, the home of fish and chips, McDonald’s demanded that they should be the only food outlet allowed to serve chips alone at any Olympic venue. They insisted that the other 800 food outlets at Olympic venues could only serve chips as part of a larger meal. So if you just wanted to take away a bucket of chips you had to buy them at Macca’s.

The “other 800” were immediately up in arms with protests including signs erected in the Olympic Park catering area.

LOCOG was forced to review the situation and, in a victory for common sense, announced the decision had been overturned and that the “dictatorship” had been brought to an end. “We have spoken to McDonalds about it”, a spokesman said.

T

Inspirational

hree rousing quotations from London 2012 which seem to say it all:

Lord Sebastion Coe – “Sport refuses to take “NO” for an answer”.

Professor Stephen Hawking – “Look up at the stars and not down at your feet”.

Lord Mayor, Boris Johnson, at the athletes’ celebration parade – “Your exploits produced such paroxysms of joy on the sofas of Britain that you inspired a whole generation, and probably created another one”.

T

WMOC 2013

o be held in the Montagne Olimpiche, with the Event Centre in Sestriere, some two hours by car west of Torino, on August 3 – 10. There is a website dedicated to WMOC - www.wmoc2013.it The location map and table of entry fees is reproduced here.

Presumably the Registration fee allows WMOC participants to enter events in other sports as well, but with Orienteering to be held some two hours by car from Torino the logistics of competing in other sports seems difficult at best. It’s all a mystery.

Vale

John Hayden Williams 1943 – 2012

J

ohn Williams grew up in Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales, not far up the valleys from Mountain Ash, venue for the annual Nos Galan midnight New Year run in honour of a local 18th Century athlete Guto Nythbran. Guto is buried in the hillside village of Llanwanno from where a mystery runner carried a flaming torch down the hill at midnight to start the race each year. It was said that Guto could run to Merthyr and back before the kettle boiled.

Small wonder then that John became a runner of some note in his university days. When he migrated to Adelaide in 1966 he joined Western Districts Athletic Club. He had run his first Orienteering event in 1966 while at London University (on a 1:25,000 map). In the early 1970s John returned to London and joined Ranelagh Harriers who are based beside Richmond Park. The club had an Orienteering offshoot, the Dysart Dashers, and this rekindled John’s interest in Orienteering.

On returning to Adelaide in 1973 John heard of other running types holding an Orienteering event in Belair NP, he joined them, and became a member of the first OASA Council in 1974, the president in 1975, and one of the founding members of the Tjuringa Orienteering Club in 1976.

Ever since those early days John has been a keen competitor, and, although he could come up with some great times and wins, thankfully for the rest of us, half the time his navigation was erratic somewhere on the course. Afterwards John always delighted in explaining in great detail exactly what went wrong.

John was also interested in developing Schools Orienteering, helped coach the SA School’s team, and in 1981 donated the annual ‘Williams’ Primary Schools’ Teams Trophy. In 1994 John was elected a life member of Orienteering SA and, in 2005, with John Lyon, he produced the history of Orienteering in South Australia, “50 Golden Years”.

John was also a very keen rogainer, and was greatly delighted in 1982 to be in the first orienteering team to wrest the AUMC 24 Hour Walk trophy from the bushwalkers and university students. From there John went on to be in another six winning 24 hour teams, and probably as many winning 12 hour teams. He was also active on the SARA committee, particularly as newsletter editor.

John loved good conversation, reading, researching, writing, singing in choirs, and charming the fairer sex. He could hold an entertaining and informative conversation on almost any topic, and was always a positive, buoyant and interesting personality who would keep team spirits up, even when desperately lost, cold and wet in the wee hours of a 24 hour Rogaine.

Paul Hoopman and Michael Hubbert

DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 41

NEW CALEDONIA

Orienteering in La Nouvelle Calédonie Warwick Williams

O

rienteering in Oceania is obviously dominated by Australia and New Zealand, but there is a third Orienteering nation in Oceania - or more precisely an overseas territory of France - New Caledonia. La Nouvelle Calédonie is an island about half the size of Tasmania and with around half of Tasmania’s population. It is situated just north of the Tropic of Capricorn, some 1300 kilometres off the Australian coast. Most of the residents live in or around the capital, Noumea, and it is here that the territory’s only Orienteering club is based. That club is Convergence, and it is no sleepy backwater of the Orienteering world either. Last July I had the opportunity to attend two of their events.

The first event in which I ran was staged as part of an open day at the home of RIMa, a local regiment of the French military based a little south of Noumea. The Pacific Regiment has a proud history as part of the French military forces, including as a unit of the “Free French” in World War 2. They distinguished themselves in the Africa campaign, particularly at Bir Hakeim.

Amidst the helicopter rides, the Harley rides, the Pacific dancing, the boxing and the fairy floss, there was Convergence, running what was essentially a Park & Street event which attracted over 260 participants. With an island population of 250,000 people, an attendance of 260+ people is the equivalent of getting 4,200 along to an event in Melbourne! And they didn’t just satisfy themselves with basic line courses either. At least the hard courses went through a labyrinth – an area of perhaps 10 metres square laid out as a string maze with seven or eight controls in it, of which competitors were required to find one or two on each pass.

The finish control was adjacent to a field gun – an unusual use for the “prominent man-made feature” symbol!

Your correspondent’s mediocrity set out for all to see in New Caledonia’s most important (well, alright, only) newspaper.

The maquis minier

The event was again well run, the courses well set and the mapping very good. The maquis is a hotch-potch of mine scars, open scrub, deep gullies and low rainforest. It is often very rocky underfoot, and is certainly slow going. The long hard course was 4.4 km in length and the winner took over 12 minutes per kilometre.

The number of contestants dropped to 172 for this event – only equivalent in per-capita terms to an event for 2,800 people in Melbourne!

This was an event that went off with a bang!

Perhaps part of the club’s success is in publicity. On the Wednesday following this event, Orienteering was given a full page in the Territory’s daily paper “Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes”.

A few weeks later, I was able to run in a bush event, which took place out in the maquis minier, the infertile heathland and shrubland which occupies most of the nickel-rich soils of southern New Caledonia. Being nickel-rich, it has been mined for well over a century, and its infertility has ensured that the scars remain raw.

42 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

Plainly Convergence is doing something right. The events I went to seemed to have a relatively small core of seasoned orienteers, and a healthy number of family groups including plenty of the elusive teens. Events are run approximately once per month, and seem to be a mixture of urban and bush courses. In the last few years, New Caledonian orienteers have begun to be seen at Australian events, mixing it with the Pokens, as they call us. Their contingent to Easter this year was 21-strong.

Keep an eye on this club. They are going places. And if you are looking for a Pacific island holiday with the odd bit of orange and white nylon thrown in, check out their website at http://www.convergence.nc/. Whilst you are looking at their site, you might like the videos labelled “Video de CO”, “CO Australie 1” and “CO Australie 2”. A bit of French helps with these, but they are pretty self-explanatory.

The Cal O’rie events planned for Jan 18-20 have been postponed until November 9-11.

SPOT the DIFFERENCE This is a map you will most likely see again if you go to the 2012 Xmas 5 Days events in Victoria later this month.

There are 15 differences between these otherwise identical map sections. CAN YOU FIND ALL 15 ??

DECEMBER 2012 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.

F

Aussies need a Travelling Uniform

or some time now i’ve wondered if there are other orienteers out there with a similar thought...that of having a travelling uniform for use overseas.

With more and more veterans, for example, travelling to the ‘masters’ and other international events where there are formal welcomes and sometimes marches there is an obvious contrast between some other countries and we Aussies dressed in mufti.

A number of us may have ‘challenge’ O tops that some use at times, in an event, but we are a pretty rag tag and unidentafiable mob outside of that. The recent spread in the September issue on the German masters brings this home particulaly well.

My thoughts are towards having an O top suitable to wear with standard dark blue pants and a light wind and rain proof top for wear elsewhere. The tops would not be compulsory, naturally, and at the expense of the purchaser.

If there is support for this concept OA could call for designs from members offering a free outfit to the winner. Then one of our Aussie O shops may be interested in organising same and selling them Greg Chatfield

HEALTH

Drink coffee, live longer (source – AP)

R

esearchers say drinking coffee may not be all bad.

After years of waffling research, a big study has found coffee drinkers are a little more likely to live longer. Regular or decaf doesn’t matter. The study of 400,000 people is the largest ever on the issue, and the results should re-assure any coffee lovers who think it’s a guilty pleasure that may do harm. ‘‘Our study suggests that’s really not the case,’’ said a lead researcher at the US National Cancer Institute. ‘‘There may actually be a modest benefit to coffee drinking.’’ No one knows why. Coffee contains a thousand things that can affect health, from helpful antioxidants to tiny amounts of substances linked to cancer. The most widely studied ingredient - caffeine - didn’t play a role in the new study’s results.

Even in the new study, it first seemed that coffee drinkers were more likely to die at any given time. But they also tended to smoke, drink more alcohol, eat more red meat and exercise less than non-coffee-drinkers. Once researchers took those things into account, a clear pattern emerged: each cup of coffee per day nudged up the chances of living longer.

FOR STOCKISTS CALL 1800 209 999

www.victorinox.com

VICTORINOX AWARD The Victorinox Award goes to Maggie Jones for her series of entertaining and informative articles.

Keep them coming Maggie.

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

44 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

The study doesn’t prove coffee makes people live longer, only that the two seem related. Beginning in 1995, it involved volunteers aged 50 to 71. People who already had heart disease, a stroke or cancer weren’t included. Neither were those at diet extremes - too many or too few calories per day. Of the 402,260 participants, about 42,000 drank no coffee. About 15,000 drank six cups or more a day. Most people had two or three.

By 2008, about 52,000 of them had died. Compared with those who drank no coffee, men who had two or three cups a day were 10 per cent less likely to die at any age.

For women, it was 13 per cent. Even a single cup a day seemed to lower risk a little - 6 per cent in men and 5 per cent in women. The strongest effect was in women who had four or five cups a day - a 16 per cent lower risk of death.

So what’s yours – long black or latte?

TOP EVENTS 2012

2014 Dec 27-31

Xmas 5-Days 2012 Beechworth, Victoria www.vicorienteering.asn.au/events/ bush/C5D/

Dates tba July 5-13

2013 Jan 4-15

Mar 29 Apr 1 Mar 29 Apr 1 2013 Victorian MTBO Champs

April 27-28

Sprint, Middle & Long

vicmtbo.com

June 29July 6 July 7-14

July 20-26

25 July – 4 August a u s tr a l i a n

MTBO

July 28-29

c ha m p ions h ips

2013

April 18 - 21

Gympie, Qld

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

Aug 26-31

Sept 28Oct 6

Oceania Carnival & World Cup Wellington & Hawkes Bay areas North Island, New Zealand www.oceania2013.co.nz Gold’n Ponds AUS 3 Days 2013 Bendigo, Victoria NZ Orienteering Championships Christchurch. NZ www.nzonationals2013.org.nz Vic MTBO Champs/Aus Series #1 & Aus team selection races Castlemaine & Whroo, Victoria www.vicmtbo.com 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, (near 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 AUS Championships Carnival ACT

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

July 19-25

Aug 24-31 Nov 1-8 Dates tba

Dates tba

Australian 3 Days Carnival 2014 Lithgow/Mudgee, NSW JWOC 2014 Borovetz, Bulgaria WOC 2014 Trentino, Italy www.woc-wtoc2014.com O-Ringen 2014 50th Anniversary Rinkaby, Skåne, Sweden. www.oringen.se WMTBOC & JWMTBOC 2014 Poland WMOC 2014 Porto Alegre, Brazil www.wmoc2014.br 2014 AUS MTBO Championships South Australia AUS Championships Carnival West Australia

OR IE NTE E R ING PUBLICATION S 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

Acqua Alta)

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

Orienteering Australia – National Training Centre

DECEMBER 2012 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 45

INTERVIEW

The World Masters Orienteering Championships held in the Bad Harzburg area of Germany earlier this year was a very special event for Hermann Wehner who grew up in the region. A local newspaper, the Goslarsche Zeitung, published an interview with Hermann, and a translation by Ian Baker (BK-V) is reproduced here.

World Masters relaxes the ‘home comer’

By Ina Seltmann, 5 July 2012

H

ermann Wehner migrated from Göttingen to Canberra in 1952 and is a founding pillar of Orienteering

He is the oldest orienteer in Canberra. And if he had not migrated to Australia in 1952, perhaps he would have made Orienteering big in his Lower Saxony home-town of Göttingen. Hermann Wehner first got to know the sport of Orienteering in the fifth continent (Australia), has taken part since 1972 and so is established as a founding pillar of Orienteering in the capital of Australia.

Now 88, Hermann wrote the regular newsletter for the ACT Orienteering Association and his club Weston Emus, bringing it out three hundred times, so he is not unknown among the 71 Australian participants (at WMOC). If you are looking for Hermann Wehner, there is always someone who knows him and can take you to him.

The German-Australian, the oldest starter of his compatriots at WMOC, is once again in his native country and in his old home area; for decades he had not been here. And he brought his son, his daughter and their partners with him, all starters in WMOC. Wehner explains how he went Down Under in 1952. “I went to Australia for six months to do a job”. According to his contract he was to stay for nine months at the most. “No-one said they did not want me any more, so I stayed,” he says with a disarming smile and modestly keeps quiet that his professional knowledge was decisive in making him wanted in Australia.

As an engineer for precision instruments and optics he worked at the observatory of the Australian National University, and is still doing so. “When I was 65, I retired, but last year I was asked to come back to do some more development work for a big telescope”.

Wehner married an Australian, but for health reasons his wife could not accompany him to Germany. His son Martin and daughter Kristin are with him; they have been orienteering since they were toddlers. The Wehners scored good places in the Sprint Final; Kirsten ran the W45 A Final – there are also B, C and D Finals – in 21:09; her brother Martin was also in the A Final and ran 18:14 in M45.

And what about Hermann Wehner? At the age of 88 he deserves great respect just for having made such a lengthy journey. “I’m feeling well”, he said, smiling, before the start of the Sprint Final. “And if I go well, I’ll feel even better”.

He deserves even more credit for going as well as he did.

There were 17 starters in the age class M85; he ran 15:36 and took the Silver medal. (Hermann also placed 7th in the Long Distance Final).

46 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2012

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