Although held in mostly open farmland, mist blanketed the higher parts of the course for the 4th World Rogaining Championships in Canterbury, New Zealand last weekend. This resulted in some very challenging navigation even during the daylight, although the existence of fences on the map made other parts of the course easier. The steepness of the terrain reduced route choice somewhat and led to many teams selecting similar "chains" of controls, but the organisers, Peninsula and Plains Orienteers, produced a fine event for the 400 competitors.
After coming second at the last World Champs in Canada, Greg Barbour and David Rowlands won the Open Mens title. Barbour is a New Zealander living in Scotland, while Rowlands is an Australian, who was planner of the first World Rogaine Champs in 1994. With a score of 2410 out of 3000, they were comfortably ahead of Chris Forne (NZ) and Nick Barriball (GBR), who amazingly met only the day before the event! In third place were Jason Markham (NZ) and Dieter Wolf of Switzerland. Wolf was the 1999 World Masters Orienteering Champion in M50, and has an extensive orienteering and mountain marathon background, although he had never taken part in a rogaine before.
And the Open Womens Champions in Canada were beaten into second place by Rachel Smith (NZ) and Encarna Maturana (Spain) who is Barbour's wife. Catherine Hagen and Pam James (both from Canada) were the second placegetters, while Australians Jenny Casanova and Alexandra Tyson were third. The Open Mixed class was won by Jenni Adams and Rob Hart from New Zealand, ahead of Mark Saunders and Alice Bedwell (Wales) and Phil and Antonia Wood (New Zealand).
Other Classes: