Florida Orienteering
Lake Louisa - Florida Championships
December 8, 2012


Courses: WHITE | YELLOW | ORANGE | GREEN | RED | BLUE | NOTES

About two years ago I paid a visit to Lake Louisa State Park on the hunch that it would be a good location for orienteering. As I stood on the deck of the beach pavilion overlooking Lake Louisa I thought to myself that someday I would like to put on an orienteering event there. It was just so beautiful.

Thanks to the support of Florida Orienteering I was able to produce an orienteering map of the park and to be given the opportunity to host the 2012 Florida Orienteering Championships there on December 8th and a long distance race on the 9th. As planning took place I kept thinking how people were going to enjoy the scenery of the start/finish 'arena' as much as they would the actual orienteering. So you can imagine my disappointment when I arrived at the beach race day morning and found we could barely see 200 meters out on the lake let alone across the lake to the beautiful hills of Claremont. With participants coming from as far away as Finland, Britain and Brazil as well as several northern states I wanted to have everything just right, including the weather.

The support of the Lake Louisa Park officials and staff was just great. From helping with course design to avoid sensitive areas to park clean up and help in setting out controls I cannot imagine a park staff being more supportive than the staff at Lake Louisa. So was the help given by many FLO members, particularly Jonathan Linforth in printing the maps and dealing with park officials, Janet Putnam and Terry Czigan in handling registration, Paul Czigan in getting people started, Ray Bruneau and Bob Putnam in stepping in to help wherever they saw it was needed and Laura& Cheryl who along with Lise Hunter did a great job on the Finish and Results posting. After the event, Ray, Jerry Sirmans, Joe Maliszewski, Tracy Acuff and cadets from Winter Park High School did a fast and efficient job of retrieving the control flags.

As for the competition what can I say about Nick Barrable and Sarah-Jane Gaffney. They are British orienteers currently living and working in Sweden. They take the sport seriously. Nick is editor of Britain's CompassSport magazine. Nick blitzed around the 9 km Blue course in 54:10, 32 minutes ahead of Yuriy Bulka of Mobile AL. Any other year Yuriy's time at less than ten minutes per km would have been considered great as would have David Ashley's time in third place.

Sarah-Jane's 65 minutes on the 8 km Red course was fifteen minutes ahead of David Waller, the first place male. Jerry Sirmans placed third.

Another overseas visitor, Tapio Halme of Finland topped the 5 km Green course in 42:51. Halme who owns a home in North Palm Beach is a veteran of orienteering competitions around the world. Florida's Reid Hardman placed second and third place went to Heidi Onkst of Maryland, closely followed by Rick Shane of Georgia.

Ed Spiezio topped the Orange course with the Konstanz team second and Tony Jakusoves third, just barely ahead of the Girlzgo team. A team called "Boone NJROTC" topped the Yellow course. Cheryl McDonough placed second.

The 2.4 km White course is usually reserved for newcomers to the sport. This time an experienced Adventure Racing team, Canyoneros, ran the course in a fast 24 minutes while recording their route on a head cam. It is posted on line. The video and the dialogue are great examples of the route choices that take part on an orienteering course. Thank you, Hein Nguyen. After completing the white course the Canyoneros headed out to also complete the Blue course.

John Murphy, Nikki Rupert and 76 year old Marianne Nicci had noteworthy "first time" times on the White course.

The event ended with a joint award ceremony for the JROTC and FLO Championship competitions. JROTC and FLO results were combined to award medals to the top three male and female finishers on each course. Suffice it to say the young fit cadets took many of the top places in the three courses used for their competition.

As we handed out the awards to the winning individuals and teams among the close to 200 participants I looked out over the now sunny Lake Louisa and thought "this is how I hoped it would be: another beautiful day in paradise". You can relive it all in the slide show.

Gord Hunter
Event Director


Related Links:

Photos - Lake Louisa - FLO Championships - 8 Dec 2012

Video - Lake Louisa - FLO Championships - 8 Dec 2012

Photos - Bubba Goat - Lake Louisa - 9 Dec 2012

Video - Mini Bubba Goat - 9 Dec 2012

Video - Full Bubba Goat - 9 Dec 2012

Master Map - Bubba Goat - Lake Louisa - 9 Dec 2012


WHITE

Name Time
Canyoneros 4:00
Boone 44:30
John Murphy 47:37
Nikki Ripect 54:45
Anthony Ianno 62:55
Ben Lawrence 80:50
Marianne Nicci 81:10
Bob Bolck 109:22
Robert Holcomb 118:23
Chris Seymour 120:09

YELLOW

Name Time
Boone 83:08
Cheryl McDonough 91:13
Vanguard Training 115:50
WOHS, Rae Ellen Back 147:46
Savannah Perry 173:00

ORANGE

Name Time
Ed Spiezio 45:43
Konstanz 60:34
Tony Jackusoves 71:00
Girlzgo 75:00
K & P Mundschenk 79:28
John Griffin 79:43
Trish Strat 93:06
Michael Mysicka 98:35
Card #341 96:30
Hawkins / Lunt 100:12
Purple Penguins 115:38
Theresa Radzicki 123:17
BSA 72, Gomez 129:00
Jo de Martina 133:13
GSA 48, Dorvil 133:26
GSA 48, Brotherton 134:26
GSA 48, Sherman 135:46
H Battista 137:32
West Orange 139:47
D L Bly 156:55
GSA 48, Hennessey 157:39
Card #343 174:00
BSA 72, Willis 206:30
Card # 339 NTR
BSA 72, Ruprecht NTR
West Orange DT 1 NTR

GREEN

Name Time
Tapio Halme 42:51 - Finland
Reid Hardman 53:10
Heidi Onkst 54:36 - Quantico
Rick Shane 60:25 - Georgia
Tracy Acuff 64:58 - Suncoast
Auri Copetti 65:00 - Brazil
Fabiana Copetti 65:00 - Brazil
Mark Cicharski 73:45 - N Carolina
James Nici 74:25 - Suncoast
Joshua Mysicka 78:47
Bill Birchfield 81:51
Joe Malizewski 83:52
David Cranc 87:13
Adam Reid 91:22
Sandy Clardy 94:33
Dennis & Carolyn 98:26
M Warburton 102:52
Double J 103:26
D Warburton 104:45
Tom Braue 124:50
Donna Fluegel +1 126:50
Scratch & Sniff 159:10

RED

Name Time
Sarah-Jane Gaffney 65:11 - UK
David Waller 81:53
Jerry Sirmans 110:10
Ray Bruneau 116:04
Boris & Lami 122:30
Kris Mante 157:26

BLUE

Name Time
Nick Barrable 54:10 - UK
Yuriy Bulka 86:24
David Ashley 87:47
Tom Strat 92:35 - Quantico
Mike Minium 94:02 - Cincinnati
David Onkst 99:05 - Quantico
Gareth Hearn 99:36
Card # 807 110:13
Paul Hodges 111:20
Jason Amadori 118:00
Tim Cowan 121:32
May-Li Cuypers 135:02
Canyoneros 136:20
Go Blue 144:50
Paul Hodges 1:51:20
Sheriff’s Posse 165:00
Meancoholics 186:55
Good ‘Nuff DNF
Card # 809 NTR


NOTES

DNF   Did Not Finish
DQ Disqualified (Missed Controls)
OT Over 3 Hour Time Limit


Created 11-December-2012