Thanks to the efforts of Stinger’s Manager Felicity Brown and NSW Junior Squad Managers Karen and Russell Blatchford the NSW Stingers had a full complement of runners in men’s and women’s races at junior level.

The ACT Championship weekend kicked-off early on a cold and windy Saturday morning at the Bruce CIT for a sprint event on a new map from Grant Bluett. With a large contingent of runners from NSW, the event was also boosted with the staging of Round 3 (Races 10, 11 and 12) of the SILVA National Orienteering League (NOL). For many of the juniors this was their first event representing NSW at an elite level in the NOL. There were mixed fortunes for the juniors with some mispunching, and newcomer Eleanor Ross just missing out on a top 6 placing in the women's junior elite race. For a report on the senior elite race see the OA web-site. There were some successes for NSW in the other classes with wins for a number of younger juniors and for a few of the “not-so junior" runners.  Sprint event full results and splits can be found here.

With some competitors not finishing their run until after 11:00am, lunch for some was taken “on-the-run” or while driving the 70 minutes to the ACT Middle Distance Championships to the east of Bungendore at Wild Deer Sands. With temperatures warming up and under clear skies, “Normal Order” was resumed in the afternoon with Josh Blatchford winning the Junior Men’s elite race and Alex Massey also having a good run to finish 6^th. In the Junior Women’s elite race Emily Prudhoe picked up some well-earned NOL points with a 5^th place. There was again success for NSW in many of the other classes, most notable being Aiden Dawson, Nicola Blatchford and Ron Junghans following up their wins in the sprint with victory in the Middle Distance event as well. Middle Distance Results and Splits here.

See the OA website for a race report on the Middle Distance senior elite race. 

Sunday morning saw the good weather continue and the racing head to a new area at Awoonga, overlooking Lake George. Course setter Geoff Lawford stunned many runners with a first leg length not often seen these days. With winning kilometre rates of 5mins/Km expected in the fast spur-gully terrain for the elites, the longer courses had a first leg of over 2Km to contend with. Just in case runners managed to stay in touch with the first leg, Geoff again tested runners with one of the return legs of a kilometre-plus.

BNN’s Gordon Wilson had a near perfect run in the 6.5Km M55A race winning in 53 mins. Gordon’s consistency over the three races also earned him overall first place. There were also overall wins for Nicola Blatchford, Ron Junghans, Paul Marsh, Julia Prudhoe and Andy Simpson. Sunday also saw ACTOA conduct a questionnaire about the timing of the ACT Champs, and the use of 10 year age gaps. It would be interesting to hear comments from any NSW runners who found themselves having to decide which courses to run over the weekend due to the 10 year age gaps. 

Long Distance results , Splits and senior elite race report available here.