Orienteering SA Presentations for 2020

The Presentations for 2020 were eventually held on the 17th of January at “The Hub” at Glenunga. We had a double room to allow for enough space for social distancing.

About 50 attended, with lots of happy snacking and chatter while the early orienteering activities were completed by some (a scavenger hunt and a matching of photos of control sites to a map of Stirling).

These presentations are a chance to celebrate the achievements of the best in SA and this year we started with the presentations of the glasses for Orienteer of the Year.

Orienteer of the Year 
Complete results can be seen by going to Results -> Results Archives

Night Championships

The Trophy for winning the Night Champs was awarded to Tintookies and was accepted by Bob on their behalf..

Course Setter of the Year

Bridget Uppill won the Course Setters Trophy for her wonderful middle distance courses at Prelinna in the Flinders Ranges which so many of us enjoyed on the October long weekend.

Sue Millard Awards

The Sue Millard awards for the most improved juniors were won by Zoe Carter and Mitchell Stephens who have both trained very regularly and shown excellent improvement over the year as well as achieving great local results. Sadly the COVID year in 2020 gave them no opportunity to shine on the national stage.

John Hall Award

The John Hall Award for services to Orienteering in SA was presented to Erica Diment

More photographs can be seen on the OSA Facebook Page

Adapted by Ken Thompson based on article by Erica Diment

Photo Credits to Evalin Brautigam who kindly took on the photography for the event at short notice.

Twilight Series and Sprint Series – the January – February events were completed on schedule, including a Spring Weekend coinciding with Australian Day where our visiting US coach Evalin Brautigan ran 3 days of sprint competition including a knockout sprint on the Sunday.  The “sprinting” culminated with the Sprint Championships at Waite where Dante Afnan set some challenging sprint courses.

A number of South Australians then attended the Melbourne Sprint Weekend on the March Long Weekend, coinciding with the start of the start of the toilet paper hoarding and other panic buying in the shops.  Bridget Uppill and Olivia Sprod were 2^nd and 3^rd in the overall results in W21E, Simon Uppill was 6^th in M21E.  Two weeks later an event in the South Parklands, held in conjunction with the OSA AGM, was the last scheduled event until mid-June. With COVID-19 lockdowns, all events were cancelled until after the June Long Weekend, with any decision on further events deferred until that time.

No restrictions were placed on individuals or family groups undertaking outdoor exercise, so a number of MapRunF courses were tested and established, including on some additional map areas – West Parklands and the adjacent cemetery and Wittunga Botanic Gardens at Blackwood.  These courses were available for orienteers to do in their own time, and are still available on the OSA website here.

With the Australian Three Days cancelled, Brodie Nankervis organized a Easter challenge including a fixed time tempo run, a Strava art challenge and a hill climb, for people to do in their home locations and submit the results.  Australian animal Strave Art by Evalin and Angus in the South Parklands and Bridget and Simon's Mona Lisa at Blackwood Park and surrounds

As restrictions eased in early June, orienteering events were planned to recommence after the June Long weekend.  The Flinders 3 days of events were cancelled over the June Long Weekend, however a few orienteers still camped at Rawnsley and ran some long self-timed score events (example below by Robin and Adrian Uppill at Prelinna). Bridget Uppill also planned 2 hour score events on maps closer to Adelaide for orienteers to do in their own time. In fact Bridget created this as an Australia wide competition, across the country more than 70 completed the event, with SA the winning state with the highest number of “controls” visited per person!

After the June Long Weekend events resumed as pre-entry only, starting with Foot and MTBO Score event at Anstey Hill.  For the descriptions of the some of the courses at the events refer to an article in the December SA Newsletter. Despite the requirement for pre-entry, a number of new comers and non-members appeared at many events. Highlights included the club relays at Wirra Wirra, the SA Long Championships on an updated Narrinyeri Hills map, the 3 day weekend near Wilpena – rescheduled from the June Long Weekend.  As NSW residents were able to visit SA at this time, we event saw some interstate visitors at this very well attended weekend, which saw both challenging orienteering and weather.

A Halloween event in the West Parklands including the cemetery was run by our coach Evalin, followed by the start of the Twilight Series in mid-November in the South Parklands However due to a small outbreak of COVID-19 in Adelaide, 2 of the 5 pre-Christmas events were cancelled, but 2 more successful events were held at Oaklands and the Northeast Parklands.

Orienteering in 2021 is planned to include the Australian Three Days at Orange and the Australian Championships in Tasmania – both deferred from 2021.  An NOL event is planned for SA in the Riverland on the Anzac Day weekend.  Hopefully orienteers can enjoy these and many other events – competitive and otherwise, in 2021.

Robin Uppill

Two new MapRunF courses are available on the Belair Golf Course – a short course on the new Birdie Loop and a longer cross country course.  These are for MTBO as well as Foot Orienteers.

And a FREE COFFEE  sponsored by Orienteering SA from “EscapeGoat” ( located just off the Golf Course car park – see the sign) for the first 25 riders, joggers or walkers to complete the 'Birdie 2' course of 4.5km cross country, 16 controls.

Mobile DIY Orienteering is a smartphone application using MapRunF. It is available for free download for both Android and iPhones

MapRunF allows the orienteer to load a map and course to navigate around a course. The GPS device in the smatphone will 'beep' to verify which control sites have been visited, and in what order. At the end of the course MapRunF will display results including splits, total time, and a GPS route over the course map. 

For other courses including the shorter “Birdie Loop” – an updated trail on the Belair Golf Course – see the instructions below load this course into MapRunF.  To do Birdie2 – choose Birdie 2 from the list of courses in the instructions.

For all other MapRunf courses and a video on using the app, see Mobile DIY page. Here PDF maps of the Birdie (under the Belair and Blackwood course set) and other courses can be downloaded.