Titleholder Rachel Smith from Peninsula and Plains Orienteers was always a favourite to win the open womens title at the second NZ MTB-Orienteering Champs in the Wairarapa, and did so by 8 minutes from WACO's Christina Renhart (Auckland). But Jason Markham made it a double for the Christchurch club by taking the mens title, 3 minutes ahead of Hutt Valley's Craig Starnes. Smith and Markham are both top orienteers on foot as well, representing NZ earlier this year at the World Championships in Finland. In addition Markham has won a number of rogaines in NZ and led an army team in the Southern Traverse.
A 1km off-course excursion by Starnes may have been crucial to the result, and he was lucky to remain ahead of Andy Rhodes (PAPO) and Julian Cox (WOC) who were only 15 and 38 seconds further back. Starnes, who dominated the Wellington MTBO scene this year, has been runner-up at the nationals for two years in a row. Last year's winner Bruce McLeod was not in the field.
The courses in Ngaumu Forest offered more route choice than the inaugural championship last year at Hanmer Springs, with a tangle of roads, logging tracks and purpose-marked linking routes in a recently-replanted area south of the event centre providing particular challenge. Routes from the top riders were all different, but use of split-time watches is not yet widespread so the interesting comparisons are not available. Casio provided one of the latest 50-memory watches as a spot prize, and their use will enable riders to quantify their "gut feel".
As in traditional foot orienteering, the mens veteran class had the largest entry. This was whitewashed by the organising club Hutt Valley, with Dave King and Marco Renalli well out in front of the bunch, led by John de Roo. King who moves up from second last year won the Wairarapa Rogaine in May, and is also rapidly improving as a foot-orienteer. M40 orienteers watch out! Titleholder Jacqui Sinclair (Egmont OC) survived the threat from Wairarapa's Liz Nicholson to retain the Vet Womens trophy, while Garan Sinclair ditto for Junior Men, except the challenge came from Hutt Valley's Ben Aldrich and Colin Barr. And Kelly Fogden, travelling the furthest from Whangarei, easily won the small Junior Womens field, but see below for more about this outstanding rider.
As last year the championship was followed by a score event. Although run in classes, the common time of 2 hours lets everyone compare with everyone else. The top four scores were not surprisingly carded by open men led by Craig Starnes with 550 out of a possible 660. Next were veterans Dave King and Steve Meeres (Hutt Valley) in the low 400's. And in 7th place on 370 was Junior Woman Kelly Fogden!
The young Whangarei student is studying at McKenzie College in Fairlie with the aim of a tertiary course in outdoor education. An experienced MTB rider, she will have found the 12km championship course a bit of a doddle, but an incredible result in the score event shows just what she is capable of. Fogden has only just tried orienteering on foot, but claimed second place in the SI Schools Championship so clearly is at home with the mapreading side of the sport. World MTBO Champs Australia 2004 here we come!!!
The development of the wheeled version of orienteering was given a further fillip by the attendance of over 40 people at a forum after the championship. NZOF MTBO Committee members Andy Clayton and Michael Wood spoke about the sport's brief history in NZ, and participants offered ideas for its future. The next national championship is likely to be run in winter 2002 in either central North Island or Auckland.
Full results have been loaded.
If you weren't there and can wait for a half-megabyte download, take a look at the map. The controls on this version are for the score event. The white is actually the light green of the forest which has disappeared during file-size optimising. I've got a bit to learn about how to make maps look legible on the net!
This page was written by
Michael Wood,
and was installed on 1 Oct 01, map link added 3 Oct 01.
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