Young guns home in on Oceania success
Tassie entrants primed for titles
IT’S been a competition virtually three years in the making, and two of Tasmania’s brightest prospects are looking to take advantage of home terrain in the Oceania Orienteering Championships.
The six-day competition begins with the short course championships at Newnham’s UTAS campus on Saturday afternoon, with middle, long and relay events scheduled for St Helens next week.
Launceston’s Euan Best and Hobart’s Liana Stubbs, both 15, are looking to build on their success of taking out the short and long distance titles at the recent Victorian Schools Championships.
World Cup representative and Launceston product, Brodie Nankervis, said it was common sense to award Tasmania hosting rights after their hopes of staging the Australian Championships were thwarted twice in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid.
“They’d prepared so much for the competition and made new maps, which cost a lot of money and put a lot of effort in, so it’s great they’re able to use that for a major carnival,” Nankervis said.
“Tassie has a good history of hosting high quality events, I think it was an easy decision for Orienteering Australia to say yes.
“Tasmania has always had a strong orienteering history and punch above our weight given our size.
“It’s great to see that continuing, particularly with Euan and Liana running really well in their age groups and I think both of them are racing a bit higher up in age this year, so we’ll see how they go against older competitors.”
Best said the new maps should give a new dimension to the event.
“New terrain is always fun to run around on as you don’t know what to expect, it should be great,” he said.
“The Victorian school champs was best-case scenario for me, but a target’s on my back now.”
Stubbs will step up to the women’s 20s division this year.
She is hoping for more luck after she tore both her quads in a National Orienteering League event in Canberra in April.
“I’m just keeping my cool, knowing I am young and not having as much experience (in older age group), but just enjoying the vibe,” she said.
“It’s better experience for me.” Nankervis isn’t holding his breath about retaining his Oceania titles as he makes his return from a stress fracture injury.
“Unfortunately I’ve been injured the past couple of months,” he said. “I think I might struggle to defend my title.”
The Long Distance championships will be held at St Helens on Sunday and Monday, with middle distance races at the same venue on Wednesday and Thursday respectively.
Over 500 competitors from 13 countries have nominated for the event.