We are nearly at the end of a year that has been particularly busy for Members of Orienteering SA with the National Carnival that received acclaim from those attending, and for which we should be proud of the efforts of members who put so much effort into its organisation.
Reflecting on the many successful activities we have been engaged in, I believe it is worth noting that the Orienteering Teams of the Southern Arrows, SA Schools, Junior Arrows and Southern Darts are strong and have done particularly well, with a significant amount of support from members with coaching, management and fund raising.
The schools cluster program has helped introduce Orienteering to many of primary school age, and engaged some parents.
A lot of effort has been put into establishing permanent Orienteering courses and some new maps have been prepared, particularly with the mapping technique using LIDAR.
I believe in the year ahead we need to continue to lobby government to gain access to the State’s water reserves and develop new maps close to Adelaide to make Orienteering more convenient. We should also be looking at ways for clubs to make more joint use of equipment.
I wish all a pleasant and safe end of the year, and great year ahead.
From the editor
Frank Burden
This newsletter features an article on the Annual OSA Awards presentation evening, Rob Tucker's citation for the John Hall Memorial award, profiles on Olly Williams, our Coach in Residence, and on Port Lincoln's Tim Ashman, who had three class wins at this year's Australian Orienteering Championships. There are also articles on summer training and events, a history corner article, and more.
Happy reading and happy holidays.
Annual OSA Awards
The OSA Presentation evening was held at the Glenunga Hub. In addition to the John Hall Trophy awarded to Rob Tucker at the annual awards evening (see article below), the following also received awards. Congratulations to all.
Sue Millard junior trophy - Abigail George (with Bridget)
Sue Millard junior trophy - Toby Cazzolato (with Bridget)
Course Planner award - Craig Colwell for the Long OY at Mannawarra in June
W35 Orienteer of the Year - Kate Marschall
Scoring and rules for the Orienteer of the Year (OY) Competition are here. All OY 2018 results are here and winners are listed below with their points (maximum is 6000) in brackets:
W20 Abigail George (5728)
W21 Olivia Sprod (5683)
W 21AS Fern Hillyard (3924)
W35 Kate Marschall (6000)
W45 Zara Soden (5959)
W55 Erica Diment (5955)
W65 Marian Arthur (4000)
W55AS Ruth Nicolson (4566)
W Open B Carol Such (4210)
M16 Jack Marschall (5833)
M20 Angus Haines (5000)
M21 Simon Uppill (6000)
M21AS John Nieuwenhoven (5781)
M45 Ruhi Afnan (5986)
M45AS Ben Cazzolato (4624)
M55 Craig Colwell (5926)
M55AS Al Sankauskas (4490)
M65 Adrian Uppill (6000)
M75 Frank Tomas (5854)
M Open B James Lloyd (3480)
Maze Orienteering
The presentation evening also featured a maze orienteering event organised by coach in residence Oliver Williams. Click/tap map to zoom.
Girls Final
Boys Final
Olly Demonstrating His Punching Technique
Each person first ran four courses in male and female groups with estimated winning times of about one minute. Times for each course were added and the top eight were paired for a sudden death knockout before going on to the next round. There was no winner in the female group as they all decided not to respect the barriers in the final. For the men, Simon Uppill eventually won despite the fact that he and Olly gave themselves a handicap. Neither had cleared their SI cards, so had to do this after the start giving themselves a handicap against Toby Cazzolato and Jack Marschall.
Rob Tucker was nominated for the John Hall Memorial award for the following reasons:
Rob is a most deserving person. He has certainly given meritorious service to the sport of orienteering over many years. He really is one of those who work tirelessly to make orienteering available to members.
Rob has been a member of the Orienteering Association of South Australia for about 28 years, joining Yalanga in about 1990. He has been the President of Yalanga for 12 years, and the President of OSA for 4 years! So he has given enormous service to orienteering at both the club level and the association level in South Australia.
He has given and continues to support orienteering in numerous and substantial roles, including organizing and vetting club events, getting all positions filled for the committee and Yalanga’s events for the year. He attends and plays a big role in all Yalanga events, helping with everything (tows the trailer, puts out the signs, picks up the far-away/hard-to-get-to controls, packs up etc.)! And at the end of the year, summarizes our year’s achievements (both good and bad!) in an amusing creative speech with the trophy awards.
In addition, he has assisted tremendously with the two latest National carnivals in South Australia (National Australian Champs this year [2018], and National 3-Day Easter Champs in 2015), taking charge of the toilets operation, and always providing and driving his trusty vehicle for transporting of equipment. He consistently contributed across the board, wherever asked to help out. At the latest national carnival, he was a Major event organizer at Crooked Straight, towed trailers and helped set up/pack up gear for all the events, helped out on the YA toilet cleaning roster, and (after washing his hands!) officiated at Presentations.
He has been instrumental in negotiations with outside bodies, including the National Parks and Wildlife service, to maintain access, and simplify permission procedures for Orienteering.
Rob has been key to building links with the South Australian Rogaining Association, whaich was recently of benefit to OSA when SARA gear was used for the Oz Champs carnival.
The significant growth of the junior squad, with Bridget and Simon’s enthusiastic leadership, is one of his proud moments.
Leading OSA is quite different to taking on any of the other roles. The organisation is run by volunteers but is expected to meet professional standards. Members can be critics as well as helpers, Office for Recreation and Sport demands certain reporting standards, and Orienteerig Australia also requires significant input.
Others put in a huge effort, but the responsibility always rests with the President. Just chairing council meetings can be quite stressful, where so many diverse agendas are being pushed by individuals. Rob does not stifle debate, but does try to keep people within the agenda and within reasonable time limits. He always remains calm in stressful situations, but that does not mean he is not worrying about these issues. Rob has the skill of effective leadership through delegation and support. His calm attitude makes it seem easier than it is, but there have been a lot of stressful situations that required his skills to overcome. So he is a good diplomat in tricky situations, never getting flustered or losing his cool.
There are a number of things that are left undone at home and for the family because people like Rob dedicate so much time and effort to the sport. This is also important to acknowledge.
In summary, Rob deserves the award for all of the time he has committed to Orienteering whether in an official capacity holding the positions of both Club and OSA president for many years, but also for his long term unofficial work helping out with toilets, equipment, organising events etc. He has somehow managed to do this while providing similar support to rogaining.
We commend Rob Tucker without reservation for the John Hall Memorial Award.
For those who have yet to meet me, my name is Oliver Williams and I am fortunate enough to be your coach in residence for 2018-2019. I am from Crewe, in the county of Cheshire, south of the Manchester metropolitan area, in the UK. From 2013-2017 I lived in Sheffield, Yorkshire and studied a BA in Urban Planning and a MA in Commercial Real Estate (predominantly investment and development property) at the University of Sheffield. As well as being one of the best universities in the UK, it also has fantastic orienteering clubs in the form of ShUOC (Sheffield University Orienteering Club) along with SPOOK (ShUOC Post-graduate Occasional Orienteering Klubb) for its alumni.
I first started orienteering at Sandbach School as a result of the orienteering club my maths teacher ran. A guy in my form wanted to try the sport and my form tutor suggested I should accompany him as she knew I was a good runner due to her husband being the deputy head and cross country coach. In the end, a few of us from my form ended up going to a summer evening event in the school minibus with the orienteering club and the rest was history!!
I owe a great deal to my maths teacher, Nathan Townshend. I can’t remember him explaining the basics to me, but I remember the sense of adventure and successfully completing a course in a group of three, and rather quickly. After that, I ran in a few more pairs if I remember correctly and soon progressed to completing courses individually successfully. It was then the summer holidays and I resumed orienteering when back for the new school year. My club, Deeside Orienteering Club, organises the Cheshire and Merseyside School League which my school competed in.
Olly's school results 2007/8 (click/tap table to enlarge if too small)
As shown in the results my scores for the series I improved dramatically and ended up taking the title! As you can see, 4 of the top 7, were from Sandbach School – something was working for us and our school went onto dominate the league for the next few years!
British Schools Orienteering Championships 2008
I went on to dominate my category every year and it soon became a challenge of racing those upwards of 5 years older me. During this time, I joined DEE, the local club and then trialled for the North West Junior Squad. In the North West region, Crewe is as south as you can get, however the northern area comprises the world famous Lake District, which as well as being incredibly beautiful has some of the most technical orienteering in the UK. During my time in the North West Squad, I developed my technical skills massively and began to slowly feature higher up the results at national races.
Cross country for athletics club Vale Royal
5K road race in UK summer
I was then selected to run for England before making my debut for Great Britain at the 2013 European Youth Championships in Portugal, coming 19th in the sprint. Once at Sheffield University I began training everyday with orienteers much more experienced than me – such as Kris Jones (WOC: 4th, EOC: 3rd) and this developed my technical orienteering skills massively as well as giving me a insight into their training. After my first year I was selected to attend the 2014 Junior World Championships in Bulgaria. Whilst I was well prepared, I didn’t do very well, with my best result being 80th in the sprint. The massive thunder storm during the race didn’t help, but from the whole week I was able to witness the navigation skills of the best orienteers!
ShUOC - British Uni Championships 2017 (Canberra Scholar 2017/18 Tamsin Moran far left - far right Joe Woodley currently in Victoria)
Junior World Orienteering Championships 2014 - Bulgaria - Sprint
Consequently, I believe that the scholarship programme has massive benefits for South Australian orienteers and most importantly the junior orienteers who will hopefully go onto to represent Australia in various competitions whatever their ambitions. Having had three scholars, all from different countries, you have and will hopefully continue to gain a diverse perspective into European orienteering.
So far, the main highlight has been the high quality maps in the state, many completed by the previous scholars. Additionally, Adrian’s vision to map the whole parklands is fantastic!
The one thing that has shocked me so far is the general training culturesee editor's note below. In comparison to the UK we have a passion for high mileage and hard intervals to supplement our orienteering! This is a concept I have tried to introduce in the training programme via using Parkrun for a tempo run and then orienteering sprintervals after to replicate orienteering at higher lactate levels as you would in a race.
So far during my time in Australia, I have competed in the home Australian Championships in Renmark, albeit extremely jet jagged! I then competed in the Alpine 4 Peaks mountain race in the Victorian Alps. I flew to Melbourne in the run up and did some sight-seeing meeting up with the two Victorian scholars who I also went to university with. I finished 2nd and we managed to lock the podium out with a 1-2-3! Over the 4 days the race totalled 46k with 4,783 metres climb. More recently I ran the Glenelg Classic 10k and the SA 5000m State Championships. Whilst recently myself and Angus Haines drove over to Ballarat for the Victoria Sprint Championships. This was a great trip and opportunity to see the vast scale of Australia and explore the Grampians (twice) and the Goldfields. In the coming months I hope to further explore South Australia and Australia in general! If I haven’t met you yet I hope to do so soon and wish you a Merry Christmas!
Editor's note: Olly and I exchanged thoughts on this topic. Olly wrote that he knew orienteers running 140+km a week. A few years ago he ran 110-120km a week, but now runs mostly around the 60-80km mark. At the top end of international orienteering, Thierry Gueorgiou, the French multi-world champion reported in 2007 that he averaged over two hours of fitness and orienteering training a day - see this reference and scroll down to the chart.
Over the summer to autumn period, OSA has additional general fitness training and orienteering technical training activities. These are listed on the web site here.
Generally the focus is on urban maps and some examples of recent activities are shown below. Activities are organised by our Coach in Residence Olly Williams and others.
Click/tap images to zoom.
Tim Ashman wins three Australian titles
David Winters
Tim Ashman
Port Lincoln orienteer Tim Ashman capped off a brilliant 2018 season with M65A class wins in three events at the Australian Orienteering Championships Carnival.
Members of Lincoln Orienteers have been aware of Tim’s capacity for quite a few years; having come into the sport only in the 1990s, Tim’s outstanding physical endurance has always been obvious; his technical skill development – map reading and the fine arts of navigation and route choice - have developed rapidly as a result of his commitment to the sport and his willingness to travel further afield in SA as well as to interstate and NZ events to experience top-level competition, which brings with it a demand for high-level physical and psychological readiness. In 2015, in his first foray into Australian Championships, Tim drove himself to Bendigo in Victoria, ran in extremely complex gold-mining terrain with which he was completely unfamiliar, placed third and then drove home, an effort that raised quite a few eyebrows! In an effort to do better, Tim attended the Australian Champs in Queensland in 2016, but was relegated to the relative obscurity of 15th place by some of Australia’s most complex granite terrain, and the country’s elite orienteers breathed a collective sigh of relief as they put Tim’s Bendigo placing down as an aberration.
However, those eyebrows were well and truly raised again as, on Saturday, 29th September, running in the hotly-contested 65-69 years age class against Australia and New Zealand’s best, Tim took out the Australian Middle Distance Championships from Nick Dent (NSW) and Bruce Bowen (ACT). The Crooked Straight map adjacent the Murray River presented as a ‘level playing field’ of deeply incised erosion gullies, subtle plateau features and challenging vegetation detail – all competitors made errors during their runs, and Tim Ashman’s ability to compensate for small errors with sheer speed over the ground enabled him to win by a margin of just five seconds. Tim is renowned amongst Lincoln clubmates as being hard to beat from last control to the finish; he predicted an 11-second final leg at Crooked Straight and, despite his first placing, was disappointed that his run-in took 22 seconds!
In only his second attempt at the exciting sport of sprint orienteering, Tim took another win in the Australian Sprint Championships on Monday, 1st October. Competitors revelled in the flatter, more user-friendly (and outstandingly spectator-friendly) conditions around the buildings, parks, gardens and fields that comprise Chaffey Arts precinct and Renmark High and Primary schools. Tim defeated top-level New Zealander Alistair Stewart by 14 seconds, with Gordon Wilson of NSW in third.
- M65A long -
(l - r) Adrian Uppill, Tim, Paul Hoopman
After his Riverland victories, while hundreds of orienteers continued their training via three events in the Adelaide Hills, Tim flew home to Lincoln to tend his farm and to dream of taking out the blue ribbon event in Australia’s 2018 orienteering calendar, the Long Distance Championship. On 6th October, his dream came true on the spur-gully terrain of Gumeracha Goldfields; in Tim’s own words, ‘it came down to leg speed’, and Tim’s leg speed was good enough to deliver him a first place by 90 seconds over South Australia’s Adrian Uppill and Paul Hoopmann.
Tim’s 2018 record is impressive: wins in nine out of nine Eyre Peninsula local events; win in EP Relays; win in EP Individual Championships (M45A); win in SA Championships (M65A) and wins in three Australian Championships.
As an orienteer, Tim Ashman continues to be a learner; he works hard at improving his skills in terrain he is unfamiliar with; he works hard to prepare himself psychologically for each run, whether it be a Lincoln local event or a championship; he analyses strengths and areas for improvement after each run; errors inspire him; his Weila-Bunyip Reach and Keynes Gap errors inspire him; fast competition inspires him; he is inspired by the feats of many Australian orienteers who have never heard, perhaps until now, of Tim Ashman.
The DECEMBER edition of The Australian Orienteer is now available on-line here.
The cover photo is of the Australian Schools' Championships Senior Girls relay winning team from SA.
The edition features Blair Trewin’s report from the AUS Championships Carnival, including the AUS Schools Championships. There’s coverage of the Invitational Camp held for up-and-coming younger juniors and we meet one attendee who has taken to Orienteering by leaps and bounds. David Poland discusses “Growing the Base” and former National Coach Nick Dent asks “What route choice are we taking into the Future”. Natasha Key writes about her 10th World Championships. Ross Barr ponders whether Sprint courses should encourage more thought and cunning to route choices. Kay Haarsma covers the World MTBO Championships. O-SPY reveals some more quite interesting facts (Stephen Fry would again be pleased); and Spot the Difference will test your map reading skills. Another one not to be missed.
Head to Adelaide for the Sprint Adelaide Series with five events over four days over the Australia Day long weekend.
In addition to open courses on each of the days, the long weekend is also an elite training camp. Elite competitors will help with event organisation and use the weekend as a fundraiser, so some interstate visitors are expected.
As well as the sprint courses, the elites (senior and junior) will do a time trial (3 km) on the Saturday morning. The two Sunday events at Flinders University will form a knockout sprint for the elite classes. Overall elite winners will be best of four results.
Basic event details are as follows, with updates closer to the weekend:
The SA government has committed to a revised Sports Vouchers program for a further four years. Families can access up to a $100 discount per child towards the cost of membership or registration fees. All changes will be implemented from 1 January 2019 and include a $100 voucher.
From 1 January all primary school children (reception to year 7) can claim double the discount, now up to $100 per child. There is still 1 voucher per child per calendar year. This can be used to offset the cost of family membership to Orienteering SA. You then all benefit from significantly reduced fees due to being a member.
We encourage families to take advantage of this in the new year.
Please click here to find out more about the 2019 Sports Vouchers Program.
Member Protection and Information Officer - Vacancy
At present Orienteering SA have a vacancy for a Member Protection and Information Officer (MPIO). We would really appreciate someone within our ranks putting their hand up to take on this role.
It is not arduous, but does need keeping up to date.
If you are someone who cares about making sure that our members are safe and that our policies reflect current legislation and requirements then you might be ideal.
Please don’t be backward in coming forward. Talk to Erica about this role. She has included a brief outline of the role and the requirements to assist you to understand what is involved.
The MPIO’s role is to provide appropriate advice to the organisation and affiliated clubs around their Member Protection Policy when issues arise.
The MPIO is also responsible for providing information about a person’s rights, responsibilities and options available when making a complaint or raising a concern, as well as support during the process.
The MPIO does not investigate or attempt to resolve a complaint.
To become an MPIO and be registered with Sport Australia a person must:
Register for free online training at learning.ausport.gov.au and complete all MPIO modules. Then save their certificate of completion.
Attend a free face to face MPIO training session at ORSR.
Complete registration with Sport Australia (using the unique link provided) following the completion of both the online and face to face courses.
Updated annually, the Prohibited List identifies the substances and methods that are prohibited to athletes in- and out-of-competition. WADA has just released the latest list to come into effect in 2019. All athletes need to be aware of this list and avoid taking anything on it. The list is available for download here, and includes prohibited substances and methods that should be avoided at all times and those prohibited in competition.
The 2018 National Rankings for non-elite orienteers have been published here. The rankings in each age class (M/W16 and younger and M/W35 and older) were determined by results in the Australian 3-Days Championship, Australian Championships and the South Australian Middle Championship. The lists include numerous South Australians.
History Corner
The Isosport Adelaide Metr-O-League Cup
This trophy came into existence in 1995 as an award for the most successful club in competition outside of the Orienteer of the Year events. As can be guessed, it was sponsored by the manufacturers of a popular range of sport supplements and was initially won by the Yalanga club.
Subsequent winners were:
1996 Tjuringa
1997 Onkaparinga Hills
1998 Wallaringa
1999 Tjuringa
2000 Tintookies
2001 Tjuringa
2002 Onkaparinga Hills
2003 Wallaringa
With the decrease in numbers of participants it ceased to be awarded that year.
Click/tap to zoom. Then click/spread to see at full resolution. Click left/right arrows, or drag, to see the complete gallery.
Competition program
Orienteering competitions have now moved from mainly bush events to park and street events held on Friday evenings. A Sunday event program runs from late March to October. The confirmed program for the next three months organised by Adelaide and surrounds clubs is as follows:
If you have any thoughts on what you would like to read or see in future newsletters, would like to submit an article or photo, or have comments on this or previous newsletters, please let the editor know using the form here.
