Big 5 O coaching success

The South African Orienteering Federation (SAOF) put their sport development grants from the National Lottery Development Trust Fund (NLDTF) and the Department of Sport and Recreation into good use to bring a group of students from Polokwane, and their teacher, to the Big 5 O event. This is an international five-day orienteering event, held every two years, and this year it took place mostly in the forests surrounding Kaapsehoop and in Nelspruit.

The group comes from Mpachue Secondary, a small school in the settlement of Mogodi, which lies about 35 kilometres South of Polokwane. It’s a small, rural, established settlement with houses, dirt roads and few small convenience stores. There are very few personal vehicles and goats roam the streets.

The group from Polokwane included seven people.

Leading the group is Mary Makhobotlwane, a teacher at the school. We first met Mary when she attended a teacher’s orienteering workshop, which he held in Polokwane in August 2011. She showed great interest in the sport and has maintained contact with us. As a result, Mary and some of her students have attended SA Orienteering Champs (Haenertsberg, Sept 2012) and GOC Champs (Haenertsberg, June 2013).

The second adult in this group is Juliet Muroa, a student teacher. Mary identified her as showing a great interest in the sport. She’ll be teaching at another school in the district for 2014, which is great news for orienteering in the area as this opens up the opportunity to bring another school on board and for interschool activities between Mpachue and Juliet’s new school.

A matric student back in 2011, Ephraim Chuene has been a shining light with his natural ability to create orienteering maps. He has attended these same events in addition to the Orienteering Schools League Camp, a mapping course in Jo’burg and, more recently, a more advanced mapping weekend in Jo’burg. In late 2013 Ephraim created the Polokwane Orienteerning Club and also hosted his first event. He currently has nine club members. He’s going into his their year of tertiary studies at a technical college in Polokwane. He’s doing Electrical Engineering (heavy current).

Ephraim did the M21A course – a long and technical one.

Tseke Makhobotlwane is Mary’s son and the youngest of the group at 13. He has attended the various events but until now has shown little interest in orienteering nor aptitude. What an improvement in this young teenager! Now he knows what he is capable of – he can do it!

Diketso Kgasago is a bubbly teenager – I think she is around 15 (going into Grade 10 this year). She hasn’t had much orienteering experience. She really excelled this week, improving with each day. At the last minute she replaced a student who was no longer able to attend. And a good thing too, because she really shows promise.

Tebatso Ramodike and Lesedi Chuene are both beautiful runners – very quick. They’re about 17/18 and there is good deal of potential in both of them. Lesedi took the place of a student unable to attend – literally at the 11th hour – filling the slot the day before departure. We’re so glad that he did! Lesedi ran the first two events on the Open Short course, moving up to the longer Open Middle course on Day 3. He won this course on Day 4.

Tebatso won three of his five courses. Both Lesedi and Tebatso had clean runs throughout the competition. Neither mis-punched nor were they disqualified from any of their events.

The final member of this group was Lisa de Speville. She is involved with SAOF’s school sport development programme (developing material, interacting with schools and teachers) and the annual Orienteering Schools League. Lisa stayed with the group throughout the event.

Transport

SAOF hired two vehicles in Polokwane to transport the group to the event. Lisa flew from Jo’burg to Polokwane and drove the first car. The second was commandeered by Mary.

Accommodation

The group was booked into backpacker accommodation in Nelspruit. We had a self-contained unit with a small kitchen as well as shower-loo bathroom. This worked really well as the group brought through food for the week, which they were able to cook there.

Coaching

Lisa de Speville stayed with the group at their backpacker accommodation in Nelspruit. In addition to participating in each day’s activities, Lisa included daily coaching elements every evening – from cone grids and pacing sessions to map symbol and control description games like flash cards, spot-the-difference and match-the-map.

In addition she enticed ‘stories’ from the participants every afternoon and in the evening. During these sessions the individuals would, on their maps, draw in the routes that they think they took and then they’d talk through their decisions with Lisa – also looking at other possible route options, navigable features, assessing why mistakes were made and what adjustments were needed for the next day.

This made a huge difference to improving the skills of the group and the improvement in their orienteering was evident daily.

This manner of intensive coaching and participation is definitely a winner, especially for these students without access to the established and vibrant orienteering environments that exist in Jo’burg and Cape Town.

Throughout the event Lisa wrote daily post on her blog – both about her orienteering participation and that of the group. She speaks of the wonderful successes and achievements of the students. You can read her reports online by following these links.

• Big 5 O – Day 1
• Big 5 O – Day 2
• Big 5 O – New Year’s Day novelty event
• Big 5 O – Day 3
• Big 5 O – Day 4
• Big 5 O – Day 5

Results from the group for the five days are shown below.

The SAOF would like to acknowledge both the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund and the Department of Sports and Recreation South Africa for the financial support that makes these projects possible.

These images convey just some of the warm and enthusiastic spirit of the Polokwane group.