While the excellent races at the final round of Silva Superseries at Woodhill signalled the virtual end of the New Zealand elite season, it also marked the beginning of the exodus overseas to take on the European season.
First off the ranks, presumably rocketing just under the volcanic ash cloud, was National Champion and Superseries Champion Ross Morrison, heading for Finland and later the World Champs in France. He will be joined there by Chris Forne, our best performed male orienteer at World Champs, who has been based in Norway. We don't know when we will see Ross back in New Zealand, (he'll be studying Info Science in Finland) but we wish him the best of luck, fame and fortune to follow in his slipstream.
And excitement is building for members of the JWOC team, some of whom leave in a few days. Every year we shout out that New Zealand has sent it's best ever team (and a number of top-20 performances over the years have proven that) but when team-members such as Scott, Simpson, Ogden and Beveridge are winning elite National titles and Superseries rounds, and running 15:30 five kms (18:30 for the girls), then 2011 is sure to be the "best-ever" year. There are likely to be a huge number of NZ fans missing countless hours of sleep to watch the races in Poland over the week 1-9 July - many secretly hoping for that "which shall not be spoken out loud" (in case of jinxing).
In the meantime - a preview of the short video(s) of the last round of Silva Superseries and the Testmatch between Australia and New Zealand.
No comments:
Post a Comment