Big Foot Orienteers

Despite the predations suffered at the recent Easter carnival in Queensland, a hardcore group of Big Feet ventured back up over the border. Wins to Tracy Marsh, Eoin Rothery and Jockus Dockus were just the crowning jewels on a number of great results. Here are the top 5 placings that Big Feet snaffled:

Long Champs

The idea of snow in Australia seems to have attracted attention from the IOF, whose article on the Big Foot organised NSW Ski-O champs finishes with a suggestion that Australia organise the World Ski-O champs. This is a brave, nay audacious, suggestion by the IOF, in line with the 2010 Smiggin Holes Winter Olympics bid by sports supremos Roy & HG.

Fatso the wombat has so far been unavailable for comment.

Congratulations to all the Big Feet kids who took part in the NSW schools champs - some of the medallists are pictured... and some shot through faster than a closing shutter.

Check out this RouteGadget Animation - Long Course

Eventor | AttackPoint (Ski-O splits)  | Big Foot (includes snogaine splits)| RouteGadget (Ski-O)* | Photos (also here)

Results are here

(Thanks to Hamish and tRicky for updates)

A great debut world champs for siblings Lucy and Fegus Mackie with Leadfoot racking up 5th place in the W20 race with teh talented Czech rider Veronika Kubinova taking out gold. Fergus was a similar distance behind the winner in M20 but the close competition put him at 15th.

Lucy's map:

Congratulations to all the Big Feet who completed the World Rogaining Champs outside of Alice last weekend. It sounds to have been a most epic and enjoyable event.

For those organisers who complain about having to put water out on the course, Tony Bond files this report:

The Australian team in Portugal (packed with Big Feet) has hit a budgetary crisis after blowing 150 euro on a single meal - either chips and coke costs a lot in Portugal, or it was the suckling pig.

The two most technical days of O'France 2016 put the sword to Eoin Rothery's title ambitions as he lost 29 minutes on day 4 and his SI stick on day 5 (the chasing start statge).

The second set of areas were always going to be more challenging and the switch from 1:5000 to 1:7500 maps bought a lot of unnecessary pain. Many good orienteers blew out on day 4 and most of the Big Feet were amongst them.