Results of the 2006 NZ Ski-O Champs
held at Waiorau Snowfarm, Sun 30 July
(90 minute Score Event)

Jump down to President's Event Report

Place	Name	Points	Penalty	Total
	Open Men
1	Antoine Arcand	339	0	339
2	Kalle Oliver/Brice Turzian	316	5	311
3	Matt Scott	290	5	285
4	Chris Forne	305	40	265
5	Felix Collins	222	0	222
6	David Grant	232	45	187
7	Ed Evans	166	10	156
8	Nat Anglem	151	0	151
9	Joe Jagusch	162	20	142
10	Bevan Pratt	195	70	125
11	Kieran Thayer	120	0	120
12	Troy Mattingley	138	20	118
13	Tim Sikma	214	120	94
14	Jamie Coia	124	45	79
15	Tim Jowett	57	0	57
16	Dave Pedley	54	0	54
17	Greg Leonard	36	0	36
18	Chris Petrich	59	55	4
19	Shane Sigle	208	175	0 (DSQ)
	Open Women
1	Carolyn Daubeny	258	50	208
2	Aroha Wigram	187	0	187
3	Julie Grant/Simone Hudson	215	45	170
4	Emily Wall	195	65	130
5	Francis Bodger	132	5	127
6	Michelle Grant	145	20	125
7	Angela Eccles	179	75	104
8	Jennie Illes	95	10	85
9	Abigail Arthurs	95	15	80
10	Jane Aistrope	125	50	75
11	Kate Bodger	54	0	54
12	Leigh Gillespie	50	0	50
13	Sia Svendson	91	60	31
14	Mary Jowett	146	115	31
15	Karen Robson	47	30	17
16	Stacy Buschl	40	25	15
	Veteran Men
1	Ron Carmichael	252	0	252
2	Steve Gurney	280	40	240
3	Ernie Maluschnig	288	60	228
4	Jim Cotter	235	15	220
5	Pat Bodger	132	5	127
6	Bruce Meder	125	0	125
7	John Alexander	116	0	116
8	Myles Thayer	116	0	116
9	Allan Grant	97	10	87
10	David McArthur	75	10	65
11	Donald Lowsley	51	0	51
12	Doug Walsh	44	0	44
13	Nick Mortimer	40	0	40
14	Jeff Mitchell	91	60	31
15	David Hardisty	21	0	21
16	Bruce Grant	27	15	12
17	Kevin Wilson	60	85	0
	Veteran Women
1	Lizie Roberts	135	5	130
2	Debbie Bunny	118	30	88
3	Cathy Lewsley	111	40	71
4	Viv Prince	184	115	69
5	Debra Waters	50	0	50
6	Allison Pohl	39	0	39
7	Liz Conroy	53	15	38
8	Judy Wilson	37	0	37
9	Jan Piggot	37	0	37
10	Jennifer Hudson	35	0	35
11	Penny McArthur	21	0	21
12	Jenny Wilson	21	0	21
13	Kate Cotter	40	25	15
14	Pat Ehrhardt	14	0	14
15	Claire Jordan	14	0	14
16	Rangi Clark	21	40	0
17	Christine Hardisty	0	0	0
	Junior Men
1	Andrew Pohl	256	0	256
2	Alastair Blakeley/Matt Swinburn	243	0	243
3	Brendan Thayer	182	30	152
4	Malachi Buschl/Hamish Cotter	29	0	29
5	Aaron Harwood	18	0	18
6	Andy, Josh, Jay Robson	32	30	2
	Junior Women
1	Samantha Williamson	195	5	187
2	Anna Hogg	107	10	97
3	Katie Conroy/Sarah Lees	69	0	69
4	Brianna Still/Philly Williamson	55	0	55
5	Molly Holloway/Emma Hayes	48	0	48
6	Briar Alexander	35	0	35
7	Georgia, Emily and Maya	29	0	29
8	Jessie, Alex Clark-Grant	25	15	10
9	Paula Mincoff/Pey Shin	9	0	9

The New Zealand Ski Orienteering Championships

29 & 30 July 2006

At last the final weekend of July arrived - our annual trip to the Snow Farm for the Ski Orienteering Champs. On Friday night, after a quick snack we left Dunedin and travelled to Wanaka. There wasn't much traffic and the trip was uneventful except for one of us needing to visit the Lawrence supermarket. Our accommodation was of course all taken care of. Some of us stayed at Albert Town Lodge, others at the Wanaka Holiday Park and yet others with friends and family.

Saturday dawned clear and calm and we thought this must be paradise. At the Snow Farm, we were efficiently issued with ski gear and field passes and in no time at all the skiing began. Most of us noticed that your skiing skills don't improve much when you only ski once a year on Ski-O weekend. However after a short warm-up run on Mary's Trail our group decided to spend the morning visiting Meadow Hut. The run there and back took about an hour and a half and by then we'd worked up a mighty appetite. I'm not sure that the afternoon's ski race was improved by the large lunch but it felt good at the time. Now, having a 'prologue' was an innovation this year and we were promised a short sprint style event and bonus points for the main event the following day. Lots of entrants were heard to say something like "it's not very important and I won't get any bonus points, so I'm just going to cruise around the course and look at the view". Well there's nothing like a bit of competition to spur people on and it was very noticeable watching everyone leave the start area that almost no-one was just cruising around looking at the view. In fact by the time they returned to the finish most people were in oxygen debt and perspiring freely. It was an excellent event and even when we found out the following morning that due to technical difficulties it didn't count for anything, everyone seemed to enjoy it immensely.

Sunday brought a complete change from Saturday. It was cold and windy with snow and rain and quite miserable. However nearly everyone who had entered turned up for the main event. This was the Championship and consisted of a 90 minute score event. That means everyone gets the same map with 27 controls marked. They are valued according to their number and you have to gather as many points as possible in the time. There was also a severe penalty system for those who arrived back late so it required accurate planning of your route by the competitors. It was almost white-out conditions for most of the event and not only were the controls difficult to get in some cases but you could hardly see the tracks for much of the time. All this combined with glasses that kept fogging up, the odd navigational error and of course this writer's lack of nordic skiing skills made the event very challenging. This sort of event always brings out two distinct groups of competitors, the orienteers and the skiers. There is usually not much overlap between the two groups and so the competition is often quite even. This year the open men's winner was a skier and last year's runner up. That was reward for attending so many orienteering events during the year. Congratulations Antoine. The winner of the junior men's event however, was an orienteer who has spent nearly every free weekend of the last two seasons on the snow. Congratulations Andrew. I can't recall all the other results, except to add that I didn't get any particular placing myself. I was however, impressed by the Robson family of Mosgiel. Three generations from the one family took part, ranging in age from 6 to 73 years. It just shows the wide appeal of the event.

Finally, many thanks to all the organising team, the event planners, the officials, the sponsors (nearly everyone got a spot prize of some sort) and of course, the Snow Farm. We arrived back in Dunedin around 9pm on Sunday night and will spend most of the coming week recovering. It was nevertheless a wonderful event and with over one hundred entrants, the largest to date. We are already looking forward to the last weekend of July next year.

Myles Thayer