As always April has been a busy month for orienteering. Starting with the Nationals, which now seem ages away, we have also had both the North and South Island Secondary School Champs and, finally, over Anzac Weekend, the Otago Champs. Short reports on all of these are included below. The first and last have also contributed to the SuperSeries and, with the final round to come at Queen’s Birthday, the standings have been updated. April is also a busy time for the selectors and perhaps most importantly the team for WOC2015 has been announced. It looks as though we will also have a strong representation at the second round of the World Cup to be held in Norway and Sweden in early June, and still to come, see the notice below, are the teams for the Pinestars-Bushrangers Test Match to be held in conjunction with Queens Birthday.

Malcolm Ingham
(mandg.ingham@xtra.co.nz)

Pinestars – Bushrangers Test Match: Call for Nominations

At Queen’s Birthday (30 May-1 June) there will be a New Zealand Pinestars – Australian Bushrangers Test Match at both Elite and Under-23 levels. Teams at both levels will consist of 3 men and 3 women, and both levels will run the M and W21E courses.

Those interested in being considered for selection should forward their names to Al Cory-Wright (jean.al@xtra.co.nz) as soon as possible. Teams will be selected on the basis of all known form.

As the Queen’s Birthday events are trials for the NZ Secondary Schools Team there is no Test Match at Junior level. Juniors (i.e. M/W20) who are not trialling for the Schools team may like to make themselves available for the U-23 team.

Pre-Queen’s birthday Training Camp

The Australian team for Queen’s Birthday will be arriving in Auckland on Monday 25 May and will be training in Woodhill Forest on both the 26th and the 27th, and then holding some sprint training on Thursday 28th. Any New Zealanders who wish to join them in this are most welcome, and in the first instance should contact me (mandg.ingham@xtra.co.nz) so that I can provide details as they come to hand.

WOC

Congratulations to the following who have been selected for WOC2015 in Scotland from 31 July – 7 August.

Men:

• Gene Beveridge (sprint, sprint relay)
• Shamus Morrison (sprint, relay)
• Matt Ogden (middle, long, relay)
• Tim Robertson (sprint, sprint relay, middle, relay)

Women:

• Renee Beveridge (middle, relay)
• Lizzie Ingham (sprint, sprint relay, middle, long, relay)
• Laura Robertson (sprint, sprint relay, middle, long, relay)
• Imogene Scott (sprint)

Manager:  Malcolm Ingham
Coach:  Jean Cory-Wright

Thanks are due to the Katie Fettes Memorial Trust for providing support for Jean as coach. This is a position which has been sadly lacking at WOC for the last few years. With her extensive experience both of WOC (10 appearances for GBR) and of orienteering in Scotland, having Jean on board is a real positive for 2015. After the middle distance race at the Nationals, along with Yvette Baker, Jean started off preparations for WOC (and JWOC in Norway) by talking to a large number of the elite community on what to expect in both Scotland and Norway.

For those as yet unaware of it the WOC programme is as follows:

• Friday 31 July:            Sprint Qualification (Forres)
• Saturday 1 August:     Sprint Relay (Nairn)
• Sunday 2 August:       Sprint Final (Forres)
• Tuesday 4 August:      Middle Distance (Darnaway)
• Wed 5 August:            Relay (Darnaway)
• Friday 7 August:         Long Distance (Glen Affric)

Nationals

Although it now seems a long time ago Counties did themselves proud with an excellent weekend of races, with the middle and long distance events in what must be some of the best limestone country in New Zealand. Without going over the results in detail, here are a few interesting (?) points worth noting.

•  Is this the first time that male and female athletes from the same club (Nick Hann and Lizzie Ingham, Wellington) have done the middle/long distance double at the Nationals?
•  Congratulations to Duncan Morrison on becoming the third of the Morrison siblings to win an elite National title.
• Congratulations also to Laura Robertson on her first elite title, to Nick on what was almost a clean sweep in M21E, and to Lizzie on finally managing to win a middle distance title!
• Great to see Ed Cory-Wright and Kayla Fairbairn successfully back in action after missing the JWOC trials, and Karl Dravitzki and Rebecca Smith showing they can still (almost) foot it with the youngsters!
• A fine battle all weekend between Kayla, Alice Tilley and Sonia Hollands on the same course in each individual race. If it had been a 3-day event with cumulative times Sonia would have taken it from Alice with Kayla third!
• What a difference 2 weeks makes. After missing out on the JWOC team Devon Beckman and Matt Goodall were almost completely dominant in M20. Life can be tough at times!

Here’s the results summary.

Sprint distance – Kings & Otahuhu Colleges

M21E: 1. Duncan Morrison (HB) 15:13, 2. Nick Hann (W) 15:19, 3. Gene Beveridge (NW) 15:33, 4. Tom Reynolds (NW) 15:56, 5. Shamus Morrison (W) 16:02, 6. Karl Dravitzki (T) 16:21.

W21E: 1. Laura Robertson (HV) 14:19, 2. Lizzie Ingham (W) 14:44, 3. Imogene Scott (N) 15;19, 4. Renee Beveridge (NW) 15:56, 5. Sonia Hollands (CM) 16:57, 6. Sarah O’Sullivan (W) 17:40.

M20: 1. Devon Beckman (HB) 15:11, 2. Matt Goodall (CM) 15:50, 3. Ed Cory-Wright (PP) 16:16, 4. Tom Spencer (T) 16:40, 5. Nick Smith (PP) 16:42, 6.. Cameron Tier (NW) 16:46

W20: 1. Alice Tilley (NW) 15:33, 2. Kayla Fairbairn (NW) 16:35, 3. Vida Fox (HB) 17:53, 4. Sophie Harrison (PP) 17:54, 5. Lauren Turner (W) 18:20, 6. Rebecca Batin 18:40.

Middle distance – The Rockery

M21E: 1. Nick Hann 35:20, 2. Shamus Morrison 37:43, 3. Chris Forne (PP) 37:59, 4. Gene Beveridge 38:27, 5. Tom Reynolds 38:44, 6. Karl Dravitzki 39:28.

W21E: 1. Lizzie Ingham 32:21, 2. Renee Beveridge 38:49, 3. Imogene Scott 39:59, 4. Laura Robertson 40:51, 5. Tessa Ramsden (RK) 42:49, 6. Rebecca Smith (BP) 44:07.

M20: 1. Devon Beckman 29:54, 2. Matt Goodall 30:13, 3. Nick Smith 32:28, 4. Tom Spencer 32:30, 5. Ed Cory-Wright 33:21, 6. Cameron Tier 34:33.

W20: 1. Alice Tilley 30:12, 2. Sonia Hollands 32:31, 3. Kayla Fairbairn 33:30, 4. Sophie Harrison 36:56, 5. Steph Harding (W) 37:18, 6. Vida Fox 38:42.

Long distance – Goat City

M21E: 1. Nick Hann 1:26:12, 2. Gene Beveridge 1:29:35, 3. Duncan Morrison 1:29:39, 4. Shamus Morrison 1:31:49, 5. Tom Reynolds 1:32:54, 6. Chris Forne 1:34:24.

W21E: 1. Lizzie Ingham 1:13:00, 2. Laura Robertson 1:13:53, 3. Imogene Scott 1:17:48, 4. Becky Gray (NW) 1:25:34, 5. Renee Beveridge 1:26:23, 6. Rebecca Smith 1:26:24.

M20: 1. Cameron Tier 59:22, 2. Devon Beckman 1:00:48, 3. Nick Smith 1:03:26, 4. Ed Cory-Wright 1:04:54, 5. Matt Goodall 1:06:42, 6. Jonty Oram (A) 1:14:49.

W20: 1. Sonia Hollands 1:03:32, 2. Alice Tilley 1:07:53, 3. Kayla Fairbairn 1:08:10, 4. Steph Harding 1;10:50, 5. Sophie Harrison 1:18:17, 6. Lauren Turner 1:20:37.

Relay

1. PP (Chris Forne, Sophie Harrison, Nick Smith) 1:40:17, 2. North West 1 (Gene Beveridge, Alice Tilley, Max Griffiths) 1:41:42, 3. North West 2 (Tom Reynolds, Kayla Fairbairn, Nick Harris) 1:41:54, 4. Wellington (Nick Hann, Steph Harding, Lizzie Ingham) 1:42:46, 5. Hawkes Bay 1 (Duncan Morrison, Georgia Creagh, Devon Beckman) 1:44:28, 6. Hawkes Bay 2 (Jan Perutka, Vida Fox, Dylan Kirk) 1:49;35.

Meanwhile overseas…

While New Zealand based athletes were concentrating on the Nationals, many of our overseas-based orienteers were also in action, in many cases in races they had nominated as their trials for WOC.

Both Tim Robertson and Ross Morrison ran in the Danish Spring Cup over March 27-29.    Tim excelled with a brilliant second place in the sprint, just behind reigning World Sprint Champion Soren Bobach. Tim followed this up with a 10^th placing in the middle distance race, again behind Soren, and 30^th in the long distance. Ross didn’t have such a good time being relatively well behind Tim in all 3 races.

Meanwhile, in France, Toby Scott was running in the 3 Days of Alsace finishing 14^th in a field led by French WOC runner Francois Gonon.

It is also good to hear that after a year of ill-health and uncertainty over her orienteering future Kate Morrison is back in full training and has her eyes set on WOC2016 in Sweden.

North and South Island Secondary School Champs

The North Island Secondary School Champs were hosted by Red Kiwis using Palmerston North’s Victoria Esplanade for the sprint, a remap of Scott’s Ferry (venue for the Nationals in 1988) for the long, and Fusilier for the relay. Max Griffiths, Callum Hill and Dylan Kirk filled the top places in both Senior Boys individual races but swapped the positions around, Max taking the spring from Callum with Dylan third, but Callum heading Max in the long distance. However none of the 3 figured in the winning relay team which was from Westlake Boys High. The Senior Girls individual races also saw the top 3 places filled by the same names in both the sprint and the long with Danielle Goodall edging out Alice Tilley in the sprint, but Kayla Fairbairn taking the long. Danielle and Kayls were then part of a composite team which convincing won the relay, although the real honours went to Alice’s Diocesan School.

Sprint – Victoria Esplanade

Senior Boys: 1. Max Griffiths (Takapuna GS) 19:57, 2. Callum Hill (Whangarei BHS) 20:26, 3. Dylan Kirk (Havelock North HS) 21:06, 4. Stefan Przychodzko (Paraparaumu C) 21:56, 5. Cory Sutherland (New Plymouth BHS) 22:01, 6. Flynn Hill (Whangarei BHS) 22:09.

Senior Girls: 1. Danielle Goodall (Thames HS) 20:28, 2. Alice Tilley (Diocesan) 20:37, 3. Kayla Fairbairn (St Cuthberts C) 21:41, 4. Heidi Stolberger (Avondale C) 23:22, 5. Amelia Horne (Palmerston N GHS) 23:40, 6. Steph Harding (Wellington GC) 23:44.

Long – Scott’s Ferry

Senior Boys: 1. Callum Hill 45:42, 2. Max Griffiths 47:20, 3. Dylan Kirk 52:00, 4. Flynn Hill 56:31, 5. Sean Morrison (Havelock North HS) 58:58, 6. Stefan Przychodzko 1:02:08.

Senior Girls: 1. Kayla Fairbairn 44:58, 2. Danielle Goodall 45:17, 3. Alice Tilley 52:38, 4. Lara Molloy (Wellington GC) 53:27, 5. Heidi Stolberger 58:14, 6. Emma Carruthers (Samuel Marsden C) 1:00:34.

Meanwhile PAPO were similarly hosting the South Island Schools Champs with the sprint at Lincoln University and the long distance at Orton Bradley. The much smaller fields were dominated by familiar names with Cory-Wrights, Smiths, Clearys and Harrisons prominent.

Sprint – Lincoln University

Senior Boys: 1. Ed Cory-Wright (Cashmere HS) 15:09, 2. Nick Smith (Cashmere HS) 15:24, 3. Scott Smith (Cashmere HS) 15:59.

Senior Girls: 1. Sophie Harrison (Cashmere HS) 17:19, 2. Katie Cory-Wright (Cashmere HS) 19:03, 3. Zoe Hunt (Cashmere HS) 23:57.

Long – Orton Bradley

Senior Boys: 1. Scott Smith 47:24, 2. Ed Cory-Wright 48:05, 3. Connor Cleary (Rangiora HS) 50:58.

Senior Girls: 1. Sophie Harrison 1:04:03, 2. Katie Cory-Wright 1:10:12, 3. Zoe Hunt 2:12:39.

Otago Champs

The Otago Champs held over Anzac Weekend drew a relatively small field for what was listed as short (?), middle and long distance races all based on Seacliff. Lara Prince scooped W21 with Jenni Adams and Antonia Wood (back in elite after many years!) swapping 2^nd and 3^rd. The M21 saw two wins from Alistair Richardson, with Carsten Jorgensen taking out the middle distance. In both the short and the long, however, the winning margins were under 25 seconds. There was close racing in the short and long distances in M20 as well with Stephen Harding and Ed Cory-Wright the respective winners. Ed also taking out the middle. Katie Cory-Wright, Steph Harding and Lauren Turner battled out W20 all weekend with Katie winning the middle and the long relatively comfortably, but Lauren squeaking home in the short.

Sprint:

 M21: 1. Alistair Richardson (PP) 19:17, 2. Carsten Jorgensen (PP) 19:29, 3. Fraser Mills (D) 21:42.

W21: 1. Lara Prince (PP) 25:20, 2. Jenni Adams (PP) 27:15, 3. Antonia Wood (D) 27:17.

M20: 1. Stephen Harding (PP) 17:10, 2. Nick Smith (PP) 17:59, 3. Scott Smith (PP) 18:14

W20: 1. Lauren Turner (W) 27:38, 2. Steph Harding (W) 27:55, 3. Katie Cory-Wright (PP) 30:22

Middle:

 M21E: 1. Carsten Jorgensen 37:33, 2. Fraser Mills 39:11, 3. Matt Scott (PP) 40:36.

W21E: 1. Lara Prince 32:04, 2. Jenni Adams 34:24, 3. Antonia Wood 39:33.

M20: 1. Ed Cory-Wright (PP) 23:00, 2. Scott Smith 24:29, 3. Connor Cleary (PP) 26:07

W20: 1. Katie Cory-Wright 35:18, 2. Steph Harding 39:00, 3. Lauren Turner 44:17.

Long:

 M21E: 1. Alistair Richardson 51:29, 2. Matt Scott 51:53, 3. Carsten Jorgensen 53:05.

W21E: 1. Lara Prince 55:56, 2. Antonia Wood 58:58, 3. Jenni Adams 1:04:26.

M20: 1. Ed Cory-Wright 42:14, 2. Nick Smith 42:29, 3. Connor Cleary 44:58

W20: 1. Katie Cory-Wright 42:39, 2. Lauren Turner 43:16, 3. Steph Harding 46:58.

SuperSeries

With the Otago Champs middle and long distances having replaced the Canterbury Champs as Round 4 of the SuperSeries 11 of the 14 races have now been completed. With only the best 9 scores to count for an individual a few people are now dropping events, and the final round at Queen’s Birthday will settle things in the senior classes. In M21E Gene Beveridge holds a 37 point lead over Shamus Morrison, but with Shamus likely to be overseas at Queen’s Birthday the biggest threat to Gene may still come from Nick Hann who, despite only having 5 races counting, sits in third place. If Duncan Morrison continues his form from the Nationals he may also figure. Although Laura Robertson leads W21E, her likely absence from Queen’s Birthday may well let Renee Beveridge in. With Danielle Goodall, currently third, in the schools trials the battle for third looks to be between Imogene Scott, Lara prince and Jenni Adams. With many of the leading contenders involved in the schools trials, at this stage changes in the M and W20 standings will almost certainly depend on who is able to run in these classes at Queen’s Birthday. What is apparent is that before 2016 there will need to be a review of the SuperSeries to ensure more athletes can compete in a full quota of events.

The standings below show only the top 10 in each class with the bracketed number being the number of races counting. The full tables will be posted on the ONZ website.

M21E:

1. Gene Beveridge 504 (9), 2. Shamus Morrison 467 (9), 3. Nick Hann 440 (5), 4. Duncan Morrison 406 (9), 5. Tommy Hayes 351 (6), 6. Alistair Richardson 328 (8), 7. Cameron Tier 316 (6), 8. Nick Smith 296 (6), 9. Matt Ogden 280 (3), 10. Matt Goodall 271 (7).

W21E:

1. Laura Robertson 750 (9), 2. Renee Beveridge 680 (9), 3. Danielle Goodall 342 (6), 4=. Imogene Scott 307 (6), 4=. Lara Prince 307 95), 6. Jenni Adams 292 (7), 7. Lizzie Ingham 280 (3), 8. Sophie Harrison 228 (7), 9. Tessa Ramsden 212 (8), 10. Katie Cory-Wright 201 (6).

M20:

1. Nick Smith 565 (9), 2. Ed Cory-Wright 54 (8), 3. Cameron Tier 512 (8), 4. Matt Goodall 510 (9), 5. Tommy Hayes 480 (6), 6. Devon Beckman 435 (6), 7. Shamus Morrison 430 (7), 8. Stephen Harding 303 (8), 9. Scott Smith 286 (7), 10. Connor Cleary 270 (7).

W20:

1. Danielle Goodall 540 (6), 2. Alice Tilley 520 (6), 3. Katie Cory-Wright 494 (8), 4=. Kayla Fairbairn 440 (6), 4=. Sonia Hollands 440 (6), 6. Steph Harding 427 (9), 7. Sophie Harrison 424 (9), 8. Vida Fox 240 (6), 9. Kate Salmon 222 (6), 10. Lara Molloy 220 (6).