Last weekend the
Australian MTBO championships and round 2 of the national MTBO series was held
in Queensland. The event was organised by the Sunshine orienteers club,
and the championships comprised of sprint, middle and long distance events.
The sprint event
was held in St Paul’s School. The main challenge in this map was to clearly view the
control points and then execute careful, not rushed but consistent navigation.
After being disqualified in Victoria (despite a good performance) I came
motivated to Queensland. I was pleased with my first ride in which I finished 3rd in the M40 category, with very tight times amongst the top 3 riders. Ricky
Thackray (WA) took the M21 category. Split results are available here.
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| The sprint map |
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| Glass Mountains |
The middle distance Australian MTBO championships were held on a horse riding farm. Uncharacteristically,
riders were able to ride across country on both shades of yellow, which isn't
normally allowed in MTBO maps. This time, I started the race with some big
mistakes and was hesitant (I took some suboptimal route choices) throughout the
race so was positioned only 6th overall. Carolyn Jackson
excelled in this terrain with a clear win over Jayne Sales who came unstuck
going to control 1. It was a great experience and I am confident that the
more experienced foot orienteers would have benefited.
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| The middle distance map |
The long distance
Australian MTBO championships were
held around the Glass Mountains area. To quote Kay Harshma, "the
map was titled "resurrection" but for many it had a deflating
experience with some closely located controls resulting in an inordinate amount
of miss punching". Seriously
it was hard work in the office… muddy, wet, deep puddles, sandy, lantana...well
we survived.. (-;
In this event I made a big
error early in course #4, it seems many others mispunched and did not finish the
course at all. Overall I was happy with the result, 3rd again, but not
with my time.
I was seriously happy
with the weekend results with two 3rds! Where next? I am heading to Victoria next weekend for
the rescheduled round 1 of the national series after it was cancelled due to
bush fire back in March. In October,
Uringa will host the middle distance NSW MTBO championships. It would be great
to see some new Uringas riding!
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| The long distance map |
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| Ori in action at the MTBO Championships |
