Having at last had the chance to walk around the sprint terrain in Tartu I completely agree with Tim’s comments that he posted on his blog regarding the courses from yesterday. To qualify – what a magnificant sprint area it was up on the hill: grassy slopes with a network of paths between statues, bridges, […]

Unfortunately WOC sprint final 2017 will not go down as a great day for NZ orienteering. Both Tim and Laura dropped time early on and Lizzie suffered a recurrence of the breathing problems have hindered her sprint performances in the past few years. The courses themselves were very atypical of what Kiwis probably expect of […]

Despite late changes to the courses, following today’s qualification heats, run in persistent rain on largely hilly parkland above the streets of the old town, three of the NZL team – Tim, Laura and Lizzie – will line up in the WOC sprint final early Sunday morning New Zealand time. The truth of rumours floating around […]

Two more days of light training and sampling of Estonian terrain of various types, and here we are on the eve of Sprint Qualification. Today’s model event (the model for all the sprints) suggested a terrain with as much grass as tarmac, not too many buildings, some steep slopes, and the cobbles of the old town […]

Tuesday morning in Tartu, Estonia and finally, with the 9.55pm flight from Helsinki and the 11.30pm bus from Tallinn delivering Ross and Nick, respectively, to the bosom of the team, all NZL team members have arrived for WOC2017. Sadly, the same cannot be said of Nick’s bag which seems to have been highjacked in Moscow. […]

After the madness of April there has been relatively little activity in May up until the last two weeks. These have seen the final WOC training camp in Estonia, on which Lizzie Ingham reports below, and then the first round of the World Cup giving another wonderful sprint performance from Tim Robertson. Both perhaps give […]

How to follow World Cup Round 1; Leho: World Orienteering Day and World Cup; WOC 2017: Time to suit up again; MTBO World Cup 2017: Who will be this year’s winners? Clare Durand: “I’m the only serious Trail Orienteer within a three hour drive”
Orienteering in focus in seven big European cities; Walking through footmarks of the past with Gytis Juska; Successful event in Malaysia

April has been a busy month. The announcement of the JWOC team following the trials in late March, the Oceania Championships – with excellent NZL results, followed by the announcement of the team for WOC, the Schools Test Match, and culminating in a highly successful WMOC2017. Hard to know where to start, so pick and […]

The World Orienteering Championships for 2017 will be held in Otepää, Estonia, 30 June – 8 July 2017.   Men : Gene Beveridge – NW Nick Hann – PAPO Tommy Hayes  – AK Ross Morrison – HB Tim Roberston – HV   Women : Lizzie Inham – WN Laura Robertson – HV Imogene Scott – […]

New Zealand Pinestars have had a convincing victory over the Australian Bushrangers at the Oceania Championships held over Easter weeeknd. NZL were victorious on all four days winning Friday’s sprint at Unitec by 119-81, the long distance on Rototoa by 118-81, the relay by 105-80, and the middle distance in the rocks of Pongaroa Road […]

View from the Chair; ONZ Vacancies & Council Vacancy – Applications Open; World Masters Games – Marshals Needed;
WANTED: Current or past NZ Defence Force personnel; NZ School Championship Grades for 2017; SuperSeries 2017

Although orienteering activity has been somewhat scarce during November there has been a lot going on behind the scenes. This includes putting together as far as possible details of training camps in the first half of the year, organizing dates for trials for various teams, and an entertaining weekend of having various members of the HP Squads test running courses for WMOC2017 in Woodhill Forest.

The highlight of October without a doubt has been Tim Robertson’s performance in coming 4th in the final race of the 2016 IOF World Cup, leaving him in 16th place overall in the series. However, October has also seen a highly successful Alpine O Weekend in the high country of Craigieburn, and considerable progress in planning for 2017. The later includes finalising the 2017 High Performance Squads, venues for various trials, and proposals for a HP camp.

In this Issue: View from the Chair; ONZ Vacancies – NEW!; Consultation Feedback Update; High Performance Update;
Oceania and World Masters Champs Update;

Time for thoughts about where we currently are at and what changes/modifications to we need to make to both the High Performance plan and how we generally approach HP orienteering in New Zealand. Congratulations to the Schools’ Team for some excellent results this week in the Australian Schools Championships.

All orienteers interested in selection for the NZ 2017 WOC team shall notify Convenor of Selectors Al Cory-Wright by 1 February 2017.

Covering topics like: Nokian Tyres World Orienteering Championships 2016, the first Belarusian WOC medalist; WOC Clinic helps smaller nations on their way; Great gathering of young leaders; WTOC: New Relay format brings medals to new nations; reports from the longest General Assembly ever.

A very wet day in Stromstad turned the WOC Long Distance into something of a survival test as the long tough courses across the marshes and heather clad tops provided an extremely thorough test of both fitness and navigation. The four Kiwis – Imogene Scott, Lizzie Ingham, Gene Beveridge and Chris Forne – all had mixed […]

The WOC Middle Distance has seen reasonably solid performances by all 4 Kiwis with Lizzie Ingham leading the way in 24th place in the women’s race, Kate Morrison 43rd, and Tim Robertson and Toby Scott close together in 48th and 52nd in the men. Toby as fourth starter had no benefit from the tracking that developed […]

Tuesday morning has been spent at the middle distance model event. The map and pictures are shown below, see if you can match the controls, and other views, to the map. Thanks to Emily Kemp. who posed for her photo, and the other random orienteers who didn’t know they were being included!

After last year’s 12th place in Scotland, the 2016 WOC Sprint Relay turned out to be a big disappointment for the NZL team of Jula McMillan, Tim Robertson, Ross Morrison and Laura Robertson. Sadly, Jula, on the first leg at her first WOC, had the kind of run that nightmares are made of. First visiting the wrong […]

Tim Robertson, although disappointed that the course was perhaps not more technical, produced the best WOC finish ever by a New Zealand man when he finished 13th in the sprint final in Stromstad on Saturday afternoon, surpassing Chris Forne’s 17th place in the long distance in Hungary in 2009. With a start time in the middle of […]

Tim Robertson, Laura Robertson and Imogene Scott are the NZL qualifiers for this afternoon’s WOC sprint final. Tim took 8th place in Heat A where only 34s covered Tue Lassen in first place and the 15th and last qualifier. In Men’s B Ross Morrison was 45 s away from qualifying, finishing in 22nd place. Gene […]

The first WOC race, sprint qualification, is tomorrow (Saturday in Sweden) in Stromstad. Team NZL start times are Jula McMillan 9:06 (7.06 pm NZ) Laura Robertson 9:13 Imogen Scott 9:22 Ross Morrison 10:12 Gene Beveridge 10:19 Tim Robertson 10:32 No live tracking for the qualification but live results at http://live.woc2016.se/blog/category/woc-sprint/ , 3.1-3.2 k for the women, […]

With WOC only 2 days away, the team have been doing a number of focused session in relevant areas for both sprint and forest disciplines.