Definite progress at last Schools League event – OSL #4 – Orienteering Federation of South Africa

After this fourth Orienteering Schools League event we are totally impressed with the improvement of every participant. This week we saw focus, better speeds, more accuracy and much improved confidence.

St Stithians is a huge property with a good mix of buildings, fields, facilities and rough ground. There’s also a lot of uphill (and downhill) running on this terrain. In hindsight, we think that the Senior girls course was just that little bit more challenging than the Senior Boys course.

The Junior Boys results are quite interesting. Dean Walker took the win with a decent lead on Liam Riley, who is new to the podium. Looking at the times, third placed Peter Carides was only one second behind Liam and in tie fourth were Christian Dlamini (fourways) and Obakeng Moswane (Rand Park) at 15:20 (two seconds behind Peter) and Dominique Pereira (Rand Park) only another four second behind. Yes, only seven seconds between second and sixth!

In the Senior Boys, the challenge between Timothy Chambers (Fourways) and Greg Avierinos (Cornwall Hill) continued. Timothy’s experience has paid off and he again took the win.

In the Junior Girls category Cian Oldknow (Fourways) is still at the top with another win. She has won three of the four events. Magdalene Kamau (Fourways) is a newcomer to the podium. Junior Girls is our biggest category with 54 runners!

Brooke Reed (Rand Park) shuffled the Senior girls podium with her very comfortable win. Jessica Thiels (Fourways) still stays on the podium and Natalie January (Fourways) takes her turn in the sun.

Moving on, next Monday, 5 March, is the Orienteering Schools League Final and it will be held at the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens. The best 82 runners, from the four OLS age-gender categories, have been invited to participate. Their place in the final has been awarded according to the average of their results over the Series. This really will be a show down!