Eleven orienteers ventured to Taranaki over the final weekend of the school holidays to compete in the North Island Secondary School Orienteering Championships. This comprises three different orienteering events.
Friday afternoon was the sprint distance, which is 1.5 – 4km, depending on age, around an urban environment, in this case Spotswoods College and Primary. While Dio did not achieve podium places in this race, there was not a single mispunch, which is a huge achievement in itself.
Our top 10 placings were:
- Cerys Findlow – 6th Senior Girls
- Charlotte Dalziel – 7th Senior Girls
- Ella Ng-Wong – 7th Year 7/8 Girls
- Abbie To – 8th Junior Girls
On Saturday, we braved torrential rain to compete in the Long distance. Unusually, the distances involved were similar to the sprint races, but made much more challenging by big hills and patches of dense native bush. The unpredictable weather threw another very challenging variable into the mix, as at times it was raining so hard that students could not even see their maps.
Huge congratulations to Cerys Findlow for her bronze medal in such difficult race conditions, and also to Charlotte Dalziel for coming 4th.
The rain held off on Sunday morning, with glorious conditions for the sprint relay. This was a sprint format, but using a local park with patches of native bush, thus creating a particularly challenging and fast paced event.
The senior girls’ event was particularly nail-biting, as Charlotte pulled the team from 5th to 2nd place on the second leg, leaving Cerys with the challenge of holding a podium place against the very best runners from Rotorua Lakes, St Cuthbert’s and Baradene.
While she was overtaken by both St Cuthbert’s and Baradene, she kept pressure on the Baradene runner, with only 19 seconds between them. This pressure resulted in the Baradene runner mispunching, ceding the third place to Dio.
