LatestNewsMar

Early March: The National Senior Training Camp was held over 10 days in Tasmania. It was a great opportunity to improve skills and the most intense training of this type Ben has ever experienced. The goal of the camp was to come out a better Orienteer...it worked. Thanks must go to the OFA, Warren Key, Rob Plowright, Jase McCrae and Jim Russell for making it all possible.

25/03/01: Ben spent today helping out his club run an event in Canberra. The gesture was helped by the fact that Ben can't run at the moment, troubled by a foot complaint which is beginning to cause concern. He will get it looked at asap.

3/04/01: Ben missed all last week training due to a foot injury that is still limiting training. Good news however came yesterday after a Bone Scan revealed no suspected stress fracture. The injury however, did not prevent him from going to Victoria to get some final technical training in before the National 3-Days in under two weeks time. The Victorian Camp was attended by mainly South Australian, Victorian and Canberrans. ACTAS supported the training with the use of a car, and Rob Plowright and Jim Russell did the coach work.

12/04/01: Easter, and The Australian 3-Days are just around the corner. Injury scares have hampered Ben's preparation but he goes in confident of a solid performance. "I've done all the work over the Summer, and the amount of technical training I've done is phenomenal," Ben says. "The last couple of weeks have been really hard with uni work and of course my foot problems. I'm still fit though, it's just taken the polish off I think." Despite only running a few hours in the last fornight, Ben has been doing a lot of work on the bike. "It's just the long second day, 16.7km, that will be a bit of a concern...mainly for my foot". Interveiwed 11/04/01.

14/04/01: The Australian 3-Days, Day 1. Ben's Easter ended prematurely is some ways after he mispunched today and won't count overall. During a solid run which would have proven a good start in a mulit-day race, Ben failed to check a control code and punched a control, close to the one on his course that also featured drinks. A protest was launched due to the proximity of controls but was not held up. A dissappointed Ben later stated, "I'm disappointed, it wasn't a very good run and I'm surprised my time would have looked quite respectable, I just rushed in and eventually paid the ultimate price. There goes Easter....". See Results for more.

It wasn't all bad though, Ben was appointed the influential position of chair of the High Performance Advisory Group (HPAG) at one of the many meetings he attended today. Read more about the HPAG and Ben's sports science background here

16/04/01: The Australian 3-Days, Day 3. Today was the only real orienteering challenge but it wasn't the same for Ben as due to the mispunch on Day 1, he could not take part in the chasing start. A little less motivated, Ben started well, but fell apart towards the end and was disappointed with his run by the end. Had he not mispunched, it is likely that he would have raced for 3rd, and possibly 2nd. See Results for more.

Ben coaches four junior athletes, all four made the Australian Junior Team!!! see them here

15/04/01: The Australian 3-Days, Day 2. Things were rosier today as Ben claimed the title of Australian Universities Champion. In a very long and gruelling race, Ben hang on for a gutsy 4th in Elites despite problems with a bloody nose, blisters and cramping. See Results for more.

27/04/01: It has taken a while, but Ben is finally getting over The Australian 3-Days competition. It has taken time to recover both physically and mentally. Ben now feels strength work in the gym as well as some endurance work will provide him with the physical goods to perform solidly at the trials in late May. Mentally and technically it will take more of the same although there is obviously work required to ensure that no mispunshes occur in Queensland.

Asked about his WOC chances he is optimistic, " yer, I don't know, I've been running well and I think it has been noticed but at the same time I have let myself down with the mispunches. You never know what will happen.... all I can do is work on what I need to and we'll see what happens at Trials."