Queens Birthday Impressions

The Santoft forest sand dunes always pose interesting challenges for orienteering even if the Manawatu is a damn boring place to hang around for a long weekend. The Sprint, was fast and easy with thick vegetation reducing the map to basically a track network. Most mistakes were made on the very short 5-6 as people failed to control their speed from the leg before as they moved into a circle with a bit more detail. With that much road running the leg before to plan a safe way of attacking the contro there really was no excuse. The Middle was an interesting race on rough farmland with quite a bit of route choice. Contour interpretation was difficult with what could kindly be called backyard cartography. Rob J handled the WOC (trial) pressure well to have a major mistake free run as did Penny in winning the womens. Comments were that it was a hard map to get into, which emphasises the importance of really "feeding" the map information early in the race. The Long. Huge and varied mistakes on a relatively easy area. Classic mistakes: 1st control, long leg with parallel features, low vis leg and management errors. To me this emphasised the need to get those warning lights flashing when danger is identified and staying focussed. On this terrain most mistakes are made within 50metres of the control, both arriving and leaving, you need to lift the level of intensity when those flags are around. Multi-loop...looked like fun. Highlights: has to be the awesome physical shape of you dudes are in, Ross, Tania, James as well as the speed and skill of the juniors who really made an impact on the elite grades. Check out winsplits for full results and splits