Big Foot Orienteers

Another fine winter day in Sydney and three Big Foot kids were out representing their schools at the Sydney North Schools Orienteering champs and they ran brilliantly.

Jamie Marsh came second on the boys course, beaten by one of his Mowbray PS year-mates but also providing a great target for a third Mowbray competitor. After that Mowbray School trifecta Big Foot Oliver McFarlane took out 4th and also helped a fellow Epping Heights PS mate into 5th.

On the girls course Lyra Simpson was the clear winner, but starting first did little to help her Lane Cove PS team mates.

The powerful Russian combo of Fedor Ishakov and Marina Ishakova produced another great Ski-O event this weekend with perfect weather on Sunday morning after an overnight storm had dumped 20cm of fresh powder on the trails. This meant that the option to cut across the trail network was definitely in play and was used by the more successful skiers.

Bart finally cracked orienteering today and placed 3rd in M21 at the NSW Champs, marking the most significant achievement of his life. Chris Froome commented  “It’s an amazing position for us,” Froome said. “Bart’s in the form of his life and fully deserves it."

“I don’t think we quite expected that going into today’s stage. I think everyone probably expected Alpe d’Huez to be the more decisive stage, and it might very well still be, but it puts us in a fantastic position ahead of tomorrow’s stage [to Alpe d’Huez].” he continued.

With one round to go, Big Foot has sucessfully defended its Div 1 title after facing down a similarly underpowered WHO team at Darks Common. Like the most worthy English football club, Wolverhampton Wanderers, sucess in 2018 was sealed up with over a month to go in the season.

Thanks for coming out to Darks Common today.

Results in all the good places:

AttackPoint (splits) | Winsplits | Eventor | Routegadget | Big Foot archive

Blue Mountains netball sprang a surprise on both us and the council with their Sunday comp, hope that you took the opportunity to enjoy their snags.

Today's event was made possible through a lot of hard work by Miles Ellis, who was planner and organiser wrapped into one and also had to negotiate access permission with a new group - we only got the final go-ahead this week. Eoin Rothery popped in en route to Broken Hill to do some controlling (apparently in a suit). The usual Big Foot rabble helped run the event.

Thanks to the competitor who found an old control out there - it has a flat battery, but once we have replaced that we might be able to figure out which event it was from, if it still works.

Paul Darvodelsky has passed away in Alice Springs. Paul was one of the St Ives High School kids who helped form Big Foot Orienteers over 30 years ago.

Paul and his cohort produced Big Foot's first orienteering maps, chose the club's name and colours and, as importantly, set a course of irreverant competitiveness that is still at the heart of what we are about as a club. Paul's approach to orienteering in those years is exemplified by his map of a massive section of forest on the Jenolan Caves Road which was named Billenbenbong and had a lurid pink infill.

Jo Parr went back-to-back winning another wooden spoon to join her 2017 spoon. 2016 runner-up Tracy Marsh got the crumbs despite starting so late that her entry had to use a munching start. Jo confirmed that her kitchen is currently being rebuilt completely to feature a trophy cabinet as the wins pile up.

Michael Roylance has succeeded Andy Simpson as El Presidente of Big Foot in a peaceful transition. In his new role as Absolute Tyrant we can look forward to the e-bike class at MTBO going on to better things, together with a division for killer robots in Metro League.

Formerly president of Mountain Devils 2nd in their final year, Michael will bring his can-do mentality and enthusiasm to a role where his predecessor seemed to have run out of both.