Oceania Carnival

The Oceania Carnival has just finished. It was one of the best carnivals ever in Australia. The highlight was the Oceania Middle Distance at Rowdy Flat, Yackandandah. This is one of the most complex areas I've seen. As well as the high class orienteering, the top runners had GPS attached to their back and we could watch their progress on a big screen at the finish. Read on…

3 Bennelong members were selected in the Australian team for the ANZ Challenge. All were in the winning Australian Teams in the Oceania Relay, the final event of the carnival.

Congratulations to Eric Morris in M40, Steve Flick in M60 and Judi Hay in W60, who all represented Australia and who were all successful in the ANZ relay.

 

Eric, Steve and Judi were not the only ones to do well in the carnival. Gordon Wilson was up against both the Australian and New Zealand team in all his races and managed to come 2nd in both the Oceania Long Champs and the Australian Long Champs. I managed to come 3rd the Oceania Sprint Champs and be in the winning NSW team in the Australian relays and 2nd in the Oceania Relays. Rob Spry won M55AS in both the Oceania Long and Oceania Middle. Graham Galbraith although not placing in any race was happy to beat Rob in the Australian Long Champs. Cheryl Bluett was in 2 winning relay teams, running the short leg in the Australian relays and in the Mixed division and in the NSW Womens Open B team at the Oceania relays. Cheryl also came 2nd in the Oceania Middle in the W45B class.

 

Only coming down for the last weekend of the Carnival at Big Badja outside Cooma were Wayne Pepper, Rod Parkin, Marina and Fedor. Wayne won the M35AS and Fedor was 2nd in M21A in Australian Long Champs while Rod had a good run with a 13th place in a strong field of 33 in M55A, Marina was disappointed with her 18th in W21E against all the best women orienteers in the Southern Hemisphere, but she was in the NSW team that finished 4th in the Oceania relays.