Glen Charlton picked for second MTBO WOC
- Last Updated: Thursday, 29 March 2018 10:51
Newcastle's Glen Charlton has been named in the Australian MTBO team for the world championships for the second year in a row.
Glen had a strong second placing in the Victorian MTBO Sprint champs earlier this month, after the Middle and Long Champs were cancelled due to a fire risk. The weekend was to be the selection trials.
He'll be hoping for better luck than his WOC debut in Lithuania last year when he suffered multiple mechanical problems in often muddy conditions.
Sydney teenagers Lucy (injury) and Fergus Mackie (HSC year), who excelled last year, decided not to nominate.
The Australian MTBO WOC team to compete in Austria in August is Glen Charlton (NSW), Ricky Thackray (WA), Joel Young (Qld) and Angus Robinson (Vic). Coach: Kay Haarsma (SA), manager: Natasha Sparg (WA).
Angus won the junior world MTBO Sprint title in 2015 and is a provisional selection dependent upon overseas results. You can follow the riders' progress via the event website.
Gill, Hoppers take out major SSS awards
- Last Updated: Wednesday, 28 March 2018 16:43
Chatswood Golf Club (and course) was a sublime way to finish another memorable season of the Sydney Summer Series.
With access to 2/3 of the course, plus the surrounding streets and bush areas, this was a cracking finale... albeit a bit long as our highest score was a rather lowly 500.
Ted Woodley set terrific control locations and a beautiful MINI course to boot. Afterwards there were beverages, bistro snacks and the presentations.
Gill Fowler (Masters Women, pictured left) took out the SSS Cup for most points across the 26 weeks, but in a Bradmanesque performance made a couple of uncharacteristic mistakes at the death and fell agonisingly short of the coveted 100 average. Rachel Grindlay's 380 won the age class on the day and consigned Gill to a season average of 99.88.
The SSS special award went to the Hopper family from Bennelong Northside (pictured right). These eco warriors travel everywhere by kids' scooters (even Pete's 80yo mum Wendy on occasions), went in all 26 events, set courses, won two age classes and all finished in the top 12 in the Cup standings. True devotees.
Once again a big thank you to all our course setters, helpers, results gurus, participants and generous hosts. Thanks Ted, Chatswood GC and the Garingal crew today. Photos of the evening by Stacey Bryce are on our Facebook post.
Don't forget our Moonlight Madness monthly series in winter. Until October...
Steep learning curve at Metro 1
- Last Updated: Monday, 26 March 2018 12:55
Regulars at Pennant Hills Park know that it is steep, slow and very green.
Rookies, or summer series folk venturing off-track for the first time, found that out the hard way as MetrO League made a punishing start to 2018 in hot, humid conditions.
Three quarters of participants took more than hour for courses that by straight line measured no more than 2.3-3.8km.
Slippery rocky tracks added to the difficulty. The key was to maximise the track network then carefully pick your entry point to the scrub and identify a simple route back to the track.
Setter Wayne Pepper invited people to bush bash shorter legs, while offering longer, safer options. Congratulations to the young KNOX team in Division 5 for finishing their courses and winning their match in tough conditions.
All the day's results and scores can be found on our ML web page. Thanks Wayne, thanks Bennelong Northside.
Round 2 is at Mitchell Park on Sunday April 15 and entries are already open. Please consider car pooling as there is an $8 National Parks entry fee.
O! O! B..... Ori, Mike rue MTBO error
- Last Updated: Wednesday, 21 March 2018 13:01
Newcastle's Glen Charlton is gearing up for another big year of MTBO after a strong second placing in the Victorian MTBO Sprint champs on Sunday.
Glen was just a minute behind visiting Swiss Adrian Jäggi as less than four minutes separated the top seven riders in the men's Elite class at Creswick Golf Resort.
There was further success for Newcastle as Carolyn Matthews comfortably won W50A, and Rob Vincent took out M60A from clubmate Malcolm Roberts.
Sadly, the Middle and Long Distance Champs were cancelled due to the extreme fire risk, and hope to be rescheduled. It left Orienteering Australia with some tough decisions as the events were meant to be the Australian selection trials for this year's world champs.
In the M40 age class, Garingal's Michael Ridley-Smith and Uringa's Ori Gudes were disqualified for going through an out-of-bounds area.
To Michael's chagrin, he had followed Ori - and neither of them heard Kiwi Ed Steenbergen calling out to warn them they were going through OOB. Upon being informed after finishing, both immediately self-reported out of fairness.
Michael had recorded the fastest time and Ori second quickest.
The offending area (marked in red on the map insert) was a 12m section of forest mapped as white that lay between parallel bike tracks (in MTBO, off-track riding is forbidden). Ori mistakenly assumed it was an unmarked track and took what turned out to be a painful shortcut.
"Don't follow anyone" is a point we always stress with newcomers for various reasons, and yet pretty much everyone of us has probably been drawn into doing so at some stage. Another coaching point reinforced is to read the map carefully. Lessons learnt.
Michael at least made the most of the 48-hour cancellation notice to drop into Collector for Foot O State League 1 on Saturday afternoon where he placed fourth in the competitive M50A age class. Thus he competed in two formats inside 24 hours and travelled through three states!
