In mid May, competitors from across Canterbury, Nelson and even Wellington battled it out at the UCOC Ultralong on the tough slopes of Laidmore. UCOC is the University of Canterbury Orienteering Club. The course setter and controller (Zefa Fa’avae and Riley Croxford) planned courses that were technically challenging, with fine navigation amongst the rocks the cliffs and difficult route choices, mainly with the question; to climb and then descend, to sidle along the slope, or descend and then climb? Picking the best route for oneself proved to be challenging, but was rewarded if you picked up tracks along the way, and managed your energy right through to the end. 

Ultralong has four elite classes (W20E, M20E, W21E & M21E) as well as the normal range of usual length courses (white, yellow, orange, red short, red medium & red long). The elite classes have a winning time of 2 hours, and 2026 was the first year there was a mass start for the elite courses, which was introduced after hearing about the mass start in the Swedish ultralong champs from one of the PAPO coaches in residence. The elite courses all had the same phi-loop to split up the orienteers, where runners either go around the loop first and then straight through the middle, or through the middle and then around the loop. 

Results:

In the M21E class, Felix Hunt and Jake McLellan battled it out for the champion spot, with Jake coming out on top, completing the 10.9km course with 800m of climb  in 1:57:11, with Felix 2:27s behind, and Sam Carryer in 3rd. In the W21E class, 1st place went to Rachel Baker, who finished the 8.9km course with 575m of climb in 2:03:03, with Tide Fa’avae and Katherine Babington rounding out the podium in 2nd & 3rd. The W20E class had a tight race, with the top four all finishing the 7.7km course with 500m of climb within 1:51s of each other. Anna Wright took 1st place in 2:05:02, with Christina Symons coming in 2nd, and Morag McLellan in 3rd. The M20E class was won by Thomas Potts in 2:16:05 for the 9.5km course with 685m of climb, with James Diprose and Hector Symons finishing off the junior boy’s podium.

Many of these podium placers are students at the University of Canterbury, with lots of our UC students heading off to race at the Junior World Champs (Jake, Sam, Rachel, Tide, Thomas, Phoebe Hunt & Georgia Lindroos), the World Champs (Felix, Jakob Knoef & Zara Stewart), World Cup Round 2 (Rachel, Felix, Zefa & Georgia), and WUOC (Sam, Felix, Jakob, Fergus, Thomas, Zara, Kyla Moore & Lani Murray) in June, July & August. We wish our athletes the best for their travels and races. This year at ultralong we had trophies sponsored by Trailblaze & Sportsplits, and many prizes & spot prizes also sponsored by PURE Sports Nutrition, Bivouac Outdoor, The Crafty Weka Bar and Real Meals.

Routechoice:

The same long route choice was on all of the elite courses, leg 13 to 14 as pictured below. The livelox for this event can be seen here. Rachel and Felix (11:10s) took the left route following the road, and then sidling up to the higher road, and down the steep hill on the other side. Despite this route saving climb, Jake had the fastest split time (10:19s) going straight down into the gorge, and then climbing up to the first road, and following the road right to the junction before descending down the hill.

What is UCOC?

UCOC is the Orienteering club for the University of Canterbury. What started as a small passionate group of orienteers has grown to become a well known UC club with 90 members in 2026! Our large annual events include UCOC Camp, Ultralong, Ultra sprint (10+ mini sprint events in one day!), and Night Nav (3 weeks of afterwork night rogaines), which occur alongside weekly Monday runs around Ilam, Thursday trail runs in the port hills with the Canterbury University Tramping Club, intro training sessions, and a few social events too! UCOC is run by a passionate team of student volunteers ranging from those who started orienteering before they could walk, to those who began during uni! The exec team alongside many other member volunteers put hours of work into making sure the club runs smoothly and remains sustainable for future members.

Our Aims?

One of our aims is to encourage as many people to join the sport as possible, and help students love orienteering as much as we do! We aim to keep people involved with Orienteering throughout university, by making events & training accessible and affordable for students. Alongside our members who represent NZ at international competitions, we also aim to encourage new people into the sport with around ⅓ of our members being new to Orienteering! We also run events in collaboration with other clubs like the Tramping Club and UC Girls Outdoors with the aim of getting as many people to try orienteering as we can. UCOC’s goal is to provide a supportive and social community for everyone from high performance athletes to those who have never read a map before. 

Thanks to:

UCOC wouldn’t be able to run the events we put on without the support from PAPO, the Canterbury Orienteering Club. PAPO supplies UCOC with gear, equipment, mapped areas, supports us to get permissions for events, and supports us by showing up to our events. They teach us how to use the software, and how to be controllers, as well as providing an overseeing controller for Ultralong. We are very grateful for the support & guidance we receive from PAPO. 

In the Future?

We would love to see other active university clubs across the country, and having a university league or championship would be a huge step forward for keeping uni students involved in orienteering. We want to continue to provide high quality events and training for our members and other orienteers in Christchurch, alongside encouraging new people to start the sport! We aim to create a supportive community so that our members can continue the orienteering throughout their studies. Want to find out more about UCOC? Head to our website: https://ucoc.nz