Juniors dominate 2018 Goanna

Details

Last Updated: Sunday, 06 May 2018 21:30

Our rising young stars won all three divisions as Garingal's annual Goanna race moved to the tricky rock of Galston on Sunday.

This wacky format, the brainchild of GO member and ONSW staffer Ian Jessup, has a mass start, forks, a score course box and you may skip a control or two.

It's a brain-bending exercise where route choice is not the only consideration.  

Big Foot's Ewan Shingler, an all-Australian schoolboy last year, won the long GOanna (6.5km) in 46m18s, more than a minute ahead of JWOC rep Toby Wilson (GO). Toby was defending champion but somehow made the mistake of not skipping any controls when he had the luxury of dropping two of them.

This means Ewan has now won all 3 race lengths since the Goanna started in 2012.

Two wise old heads in Richard Morris (Bennelong) and Andy Simpson (BF) were next - although Andy only skipped one control and was left ruing his choice to visit #20 near the end.

The 1:6,000 scale meant a map flip (see side 1 and side 2) - which fork would you take? which order would you do the box? Which two controls wold you skip?

In the middle DraGOn (5.1km), Clyde McGhee (BN) continued his great form with a 34-second win over young Finn Iida Lehtonen (GO). Clyde got around in 47:05. Angus Leung (GO) made it a trifecta of juniors with his third placing.

Angus' younger sister Andra won the short GeckO (3.9km) by a massive 12 minutes, covering the course in 48:59. Veteran Ian Miller (WHO) was second in a tad over an hour. Iida's dad Juha started late and had the second fastest time (56:46) but was not part of the mass start.

We'd also like to congratulate sub-juniors Lyra Simpson (BF) for winning the Easy (1.9km) and Curtis Pepper (BN) the Long Easy (3.5km). And thanks to the half dozen newcomers for giving it a go today.