39 Newcastle club members were part of the 540 orienteers who made their way to Wagga Wagga over the June long weekend for the Australian 3 Day Championships. The event was moved from the usual Easter timeslot due to the Oceania Championships being held in New Zealand at that time. As this was the usual weekend for the NSW Queens Birthday 3 day event, the competition followed the QB3 format this year with results from a middle distance, long distance and sprint event combining for an overall time.
Orienteers enjoyed a great weekend with favourable weather and challenging but runnable granite areas, plus a sprint at Wagga’s Charles Sturt University which featured courses starting on a boulder studded hillside before entering the campus buildings.
11 Newcastle club members finished on the podium for their class after three days of competition.
In W12A, Rebecca Craig and Erika Enderby swapped the lead over the first two days with Rebecca hanging on to finish on top after the sprint. In the 14’s, Mikalya Enderby (second W14A) and Oskar Mella (third M14A) both ran well over the three days to secure a top three place. Alvin Craig was looking a certainty for top two in M16A going into Monday’s sprint, a minute behind leader Jenson Key, until both succumbed to the pressure and mispunched. Shane Jenkins (M35A-S) and Sam Howe (W35A) ran consistently to finish second and third respectively in their classes.
In W45A, Jenny Enderby held on to win with a combined time of 2h5m13s over the three days, just 10 seconds ahead of second place in a very tight field at the top of this age group. Scott Simson & Gail Quantock continued their good form to secure podium places with Scott unthreatened in taking out M45A and Gail second in W55A. Glenn Burgess snuck into second in M55A with Rob Vincent busy doing controller duties for the long distance day and class leader, NSW President Greg Barbour, punching a wrong control in the sprint. In M60A, Geoff Todkill came back from short lay off from competition but showed the time away hadn’t impacted his form, grabbing third place.
