Favourites Lead but New Stars Rise

As predicted, Carsten Jorgensen (Christchurch) and Marquita Gelderman from Helensville have taken the early lead in the 2004 Orienteering Superseries following the Wellington Championships in Central Hawkes Bay. Alan Berry and Hamish Goodwin set two testing races on the picturesque Smedley Station, in which numerous crossings of the deep native-bushed gorges provided navigational challenges like negotiating a maze. Alongside the dominance of the favourites, Stu Barr, Chris Forne and Claire Paterson produced the standout performances of the weekend.

Saturday's long-distance race was too long for the majority of the non-elites, but it was one of the few events in which the mens winning time came anywhere near the target of 105 minutes, and the first for a long time to provide elites with a 1:15,000 map as per international rules. The course planning too was in true long-distance style, with a 2.2-km route choice leg for the men after a series of gorge-hops, which were so tricky as to make planning ahead very difficult. Alternative routes on this leg were up to a kilometre apart!

On such a course the inexperienced can run out of will-power as well as energy. So it was pleasing to see that three minutes behind the world-ranked Jorgensen came Wellington's Stu Barr, whose top result last year came from the sprint distance! And second behind the wily Gelderman was nineteen-year-old Claire Paterson from Palmerston North. The third placegetters were Chris Forne and Jenni Adams.

Nominally a middle-distance event, the next day's courses ignored the 30-minute requirement for elites and seemed to be "60% of single-day times" as required for the rest. But no-one was complaining at a second chance to grapple with the gorges again in sunny Hawkes Bay weather. And just detailed sand-dune and mining terrain is not ideal for the long distance, Smedley is perhaps not so suited to the middle.

This time Jorgensen was upstaged by Christchurch's Chris Forne; in years to come, he'll be able to tell his grandchildren of the day he beat the fourth placegetter from the World Champs! In third place behind the Dane was Neil Kerrison, still on a roll after his good showing at the Auckland Champs. Although Jorgensen now leads the series Forne is only two points behind, with a larger gap back to Kerrison and Barr.

Gelderman won the womens race again, followed this time by Jenni Adams and Rebecca Smith. As a result Gelderman has a comfortable buffer to Adams, but the young Paterson is only one point further back. This is an interesting prospect not only for the Superseries, but also for Paterson's preparation for next year's Junior World Championships in Poland.

Unfortunately for the home team, Paterson was the only Central Raiders female to run. In spite of a good showing by the men, they were beaten by the Northern Knights and their domination of the womens class. (Does that mean they are dominatrices?) Southerly Storm was third but not so far behind thanks to the quality of its small team, and can look forward to moving ahead in the next two rounds in Otago and Southland. Round two will consist of a long and a classic race near Dunedin in two week's time.

Results, Coming Events