Yukoners represent Canada at orienteering championships

It was a highlight filled week for Yukoners Lee Hawkings and Colin Abbott, who tested their skills as orienteerers for the first time in an international competition.

It was a highlight filled week for Yukoners Lee Hawkings and Colin Abbott, who tested their skills as orienteerers for the first time in an international competition.
The duo represented two of the six person Canadian team at the 2008 Junior World Orienteering Championships, which were held in Goteburg, Sweden from June 30 to July 6.
“It was awesome,“ said Hawkings, “The sport is a whole other level over there, so we weren’t really serious threats for the actual competition, but it was a good personal experience and it was just nice to see what it’s like over there, so now we have something to work for in the future.“
The sport of Orienteering is a running competition that involves navigation skills, using a detailed topographical map and compass.

Events are time-based and consist of a race in which individual participants navigate through some form of diverse terrain, which is normally wooded, by reading from a special purpose map and using a magnetic compass.

To successfully complete the event a participant must visit, in proper order, the control points, which are all indicated on the map.
The control points and the course itself are both kept secret from the competitors until the official start of the event when the map is provided. Participants must start at staggered intervals and are timed individually.

Final placing is determined by the proper completion of the course in the shortest amount of time amongst the field. 
Abbott and Hawkings, who have both been competitive in the sport for about five years, qualified for the world juniors after competing at the national championships in last July in Saskatchewan.

Qualification at the selection race was based on the top times for each male and female in the junior age category. Abbott finished in third, while Hawkings was right behind him, placing fourth at the event.
The 2007 nationals featured one of the largest fields in the junior category, which included close to 20 individuals.

This year’s world juniors orienteering championships had 175 male participants and 125 female competitors.

Besides Canada, some of the countries included the Czech Republic, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, Estonia and Sweden.
Both Hawkings and Abbott qualified for all four events at the championships. The four events were the sprint, middle, long distances as well as the relay competition.
Both Hawkings and Abbott were among the younger participants at the event, which featured orienteerers as old as 20.
Before the championships, both

Abbott and Hawkings were training a month and a half on a daily basis. Some of the aspects they worked on included on mental training, map reading and general fitness improvement. The two also practiced orienteering on some local maps.
The two arrived on June 25 and the very next day joined in on the four remaining days of a week-long training session.

The training camp session focussed mostly on the Swedish terrain and helping the orienteerers get used to mapping reading techniques.
The first race that was held was the sprint sprint event. Both Abbott and Hawkings ran into a little bit of trouble in this distance, which resulted in a lower position than they hoped for. Hawkings ended up in 148, while Abbott finished in 168th place.
However, the two rebounded for the remainder of the week’s competition.

Hawkings had the second best Canadian time of 30:18 in the middle distance C event, finishing in 25th place. He was just four seconds behind fellow Canadian Fraser Ross.
Abbott had a great showing in the long distance event, placing 131 out of 175. His time was 1:59:23, while Hawkings was right behind him, finishing in 132nd place with a time of 2:01:03.
Hawkings said he was happy with how the championships went.
“I am really pleased with how it went,“ he said.

“We may have not have done that great in the actual results, but for me it was about personal experience and personal improvement and that’s what I am really happy with.“
Abbott said the highlight was the competition as a whole.
“It was totally unlike any other race I had been to,“ he said. “Everyone was so good at both running and navigating.“
Both Abbott and Hawkings said this was the best experience they have ever had in the sport.

They hope to compete in future Junior World Orienteering Championships. Hawkings will take part in the nationals, while Abbott will compete at the North American championships, which are being held in New York in September.