Ultimax Stingers 5 Days
3rd - 7th January 2007, Orange, Australia.
The Ultimax Stingers
and Goldseekers OC, invite you to come and enjoy five days of high
quality and enjoyable orienteering in some of the best Granite Terrain
Australia has to offer. The courses will be set by the JWOC 2007 course
planners and will provide an excellent opportunity to prepare for the
Junior World Champs. All orienteers, be they Australian or from abroad,
will love the orienteering we have to offer.
Ultimax Stingers 5 days- Final report
Tuesday, 9 January 2007
 The Ultimax 5-days
culminated with a reverse order (best last) start based on competitors best 3
results of the first 4 days. The local “Goldseekers” Orienteering club organized
the final day, taking the reigns from the Ultimax Stingers team. The tough
granite terrain of the last 4 days was also replaced by Spur/gully terrain with
predominate pine tree forest. Heavy rain during the morning would have put a
smile on the faces of local farmers, but made conditions difficult in the steep
and slippery terrain.
In the Men’s A class,
Mats Troeng (SWE) was leading Julian Dent (NSW), Olav Lundanes (NOR) and
Carsten Joergenson (DEN) in a very competitive international field. Lundanes
caught Joergensen at #7 after a mistake, and a different route to #10 allowed
Dent catch them both. This pack pushed each other very hard to the end of the
course, with Lundanes (40.27) showing great speed to open up a small gap at the
finish over Joergensen(41.34). Dent (39.41) impressively hung on to two of the
fastest athletes in the sport to take the win. Troeng (41.37) raced alone to
finish 4th.
In the Ultimax 5-days overall pointscore,
Dent moved into 1st place after his Day 5 win, but was ineligible for
first prize as he was part of there NSW Stingers organising team. Troeng was 2nd,
Lundanes 3rd and Joergensen 4th. Australia’s top
hope for 2007 JWOC in Dubbo, Simon Uphill, had a great week to finish 5th.
 In Women’s A, New Zealand
had their first success, with promising junior Amber Morrison (41.53) leading
the race from the 2nd control. Morrison was part of a large contingent
of kiwi juniors in Australia
for the 5-days and pre-JWOC training camp. Norway’s Mali
Fjogstad Nilsen (43.49) overcame a slow start to finish 2nd. Grace
Elson (44.24) in 2nd place until losing time at #9, then fought back
to take 3rd place. In the Ultimax 5-days overall pointscore, Elson
held onto her lead, with Nilsen 2nd, and Victoria’s Jasmine Neve
finishing 3rd.
A great array of prizes were provided to placegetters, including Berghaus backpacks for the winners. Many
other lucky draw prizes were available for our other sponsors including Ultimax socks, The Robin Hood Hotel , Run for
Your Life – running magazine, AROCSPORT and Basil & Jean Baldwin’s
vineyard, Fourjay Farms. 
Day 5 results
Winsplits
Overall results
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Ultimax 5 Days, Day 4
Sunday, 7 January 2007
Olav Lundanes
today showed why he is one of the favourites to take gold at the Junior World
Champs at Dubbo in July. He dominated the Men’s class, winning by a huge six
and a half minutes. The course was long distance and it certainly was tough
with many of the field not completing the course and Among those that did not
many had ‘clean’ runs. One of those few was Lundanes, he was happy with his run
commenting it was error free. It certainly sends a warming to the juniors out
there that he is comfortable in Australian granite after only 4 runs. Mats
Troeng did challenge him during the course taking a small lead between controls
8 and 12. A mistake on the leg 12th slowed him down and he followed
this with another large error at the 20th. Carsten Jorgensen slotted
into second with a run punctuated with a number of small errors that prevented
him winning. Troeng was third. Simon Uphill continued his good form with a
strong fourth place.
Grace
Elson prevented a Norwegian double when she won her third race of week. Her
performance was as dominant as Lundanes’. The margin of five minutes was
steadily built over the race and she held the lead from the third control
onwards. Yesterday’s winner Mali Fjogstad Nilsen was second after a few hiccups
during the course, her main time loss was on the long leg where she dropped two
minutes to Elson. Ida Maire Naas Bjaargul had her best result of the week so
far finishing third. The European’s results have steadily improved over the
course of the 5 days showing their adaptation to the Aussie terrain. The week
following the 5 days will be a training camp based in Orange and Canberra. This will
give them ample opportunity to become granite confident.
The
NSW Stingers would like to thank the support of all their sponsors including
Ultimax socks, The Robin Hood Hotel , Run for Your Life – running magazine,
AROCSPORT and Basil & Jean Baldwin’s vineyard, Fourjay Farms.
Splits/Results Results on Winsplits
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Ultimax Stingers 5 Day - Day 2 & 3 Report
Friday, 5 January 2007
Day 2 of the Ultimax 5 days saw competitors
return to Kahli’s Rocks but venture into different terrain with a
different format. All classes had mass starts with ‘A’ classes also having
hageby style loops. That is two loops beginning and ending at central pivot
control with half the field doing each loop then swapping. The last 4 controls
were common allowing for a spectacular finish.
The
long first leg spread the 80+ men’s field with NZ’s Ross Morrison taking the
award for first there to the control. Many of the favourites were on the same looping and were
battling strongly until Julian Dent made a mistake taking Kerrin Rattray with
him. At this point Carsten Jorgensen took the lead opening up a gap over Dave
Shepherd and fellow Dane Rune Olsen. With a small lead Carsten chose the safe
route around the clearing to the second-last control and Dave and Rune pounced.
Dave was slightly ahead of Rune heading up to the last control while the spectators were
treated to a ding-dong battle. As they jumped the fence Rune drew alongside using
his superior speed and had the better approach to punch the last control first and
secure the victory. Carsten came in third with a trio of juniors taking 4th,
5th and 6th. Czech Jan Benes, Danish hopeful Christian
Bobach and Aussie JWOC gun Simon Uphill.
Susanne
Casanova looked set to take a comfortable victory in the women’s class with a 1
½ minute lead with three controls to go. It all came unstuck however when, at
the next control, an error allowed Norwegian Guro Flatekval to get a sniff of
the lead. The mistake seemed to dampen Susanne’s pace and Guro was able to
sneak ahead to finish three seconds ahead. Day 1 winner, Grace Elson, had a
break earlier in the race but got lost amongst the rocks and blew any chance of
a double. She showed her class however in recovering to third place. Jasmine
Neve was next with NZ’s Lizzie Ingham leading a big group to come 5th
ahead of Anna Sheldon.
Gumble
Creek played host to Day 3, a middle distance set by Dave Shepherd. Competitors
were immediately thrown into technical granite with low-visibility undergrowth and
it took some early victims. Julian Dent was out of the blocks fast and had the
lead before he made a two-minute error allowing Swede Mats Troeng to pounce. He
didn’t relinquish the lead and held on for a 30 second victory. Dent in second
was 1:15 ahead of current
Junior World Champion Saaren Bobach who was very fast but lost small amounts of
time at a number of controls.
Jasmine
Neve came out firing as she raced to the lead over the first three legs, it was
short lived though as she lost 40 seconds at the fourth dropping her down the
field. The ever present Grace Elson was there to take the lead and was looking
good for the win when a lapse in concentration cost her two minutes and Mali Fjogstad Nilsen flew
home for a 25 second victory
Results - Day 2
Results - Day 3 Spilts on Winsplits Dave Meyer
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Ultimax 5 Days Day 1 Report
Wednesday, 3 January 2007
The Ultimax
5-Days kicked off today amongst the complex granite of Kahli’s Rocks. Men’s and
Women’s A started proceedings with a tough but fast sprint. It was Julian Dent
who shone through in the Men’s with a massive minute victory to his housemate
Kerrin Rattray. Former world number 1 Mats Troeng took third a further 30
seconds adrift. Grace Elson won the women’s in equally emphatic fashion,
beating Jasmine Neve but over a minute to show that she could be the one beat
this week. Neve was followed by NZ veteran Jenni Adams.
The top ten from
the qualifier raced again in the afternoon in a top ten shootout which had $350
total prize money on offer. It was a reverse chasing start, at one-minute
intervals, with a map change to give spectators a good view of the competitors.
Kerrin Rattray blew his chances early with a one minute mistake at the first
control. Julian then caught him and then ran the majority of the course
together. Junior Norwegian star Olav Lundanes was the clubhouse leader with
Mats Troeng coming through slightly behind. Dent however stormed to victory
helping Rattray to fourth along the way.
Three young
Australian girls showed the international field how its done. Vanessa Round was
the first to climb on the podium’s top step with a quick time. It was quick but
not enough to keep out Jasmine Neve who slipped in ahead. All eyes were then on
the last starter Grace Elson who looked strong through the map change. In the
end she took the $100 winner’s cheque followed but Neve and Round.
Day 2 sees a return
to Kahli’s Rocks with all classes having a mass start. It should definitely
provide an interesting battle in all classes. Day 1 Results Sprint Final Results Spilts on Winsplits
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