The second “B meet” of the season, hosted by the Yukon Orienteering Association at Chadburn Lake Road, yielded a completely new list of winners on Wednesday.
After taking second in season opener on May 4, Whitehorse’s Brent Langbakk, a five-time Team Canada member at the World Orienteering Championships, grabbed the top spot in the long advanced category.
“It went well. It was a really good, challenging course,” said Langbakk. “There were a couple really nice route-selection legs. I didn’t have too much in the way of mistakes - a couple small ones early, but then it was good.”
Langbakk took first by almost a full 10 minutes over second place Forest Pearson, who defeated Langbakk in the first meet of the season. Finishing third on Wednesday was another former Team Canada member, Pam James, who came ahead of junior Trevor Bray.
“I had a lot of trouble last week,” said Langbakk. “I had a lot of trouble on one control early on. Later on, in the course last week, there was flag in the wrong place, so I obviously had trouble with that one.”
Another to move from a second-place finish on May 4, into a first place-finish spot on Wednesday, was visiting junior Graham Ereaux, from New Brunswick, in the short advanced category. Ereaux is one of two juniors from Outside the territory in town to train for the Junior World Championships, taking place this July in Wejherowo, Poland. The other is Calgary’s Tori Owen, who finished eighth in the short advanced.
“There are four more athletes coming up to train with us this summer,” said Langbakk.
Besides the fact that the Yukon is a powerhouse in orienteering, “There are a couple other factors,” said Langbakk. “It’s easy to get to training (in Whitehorse); you don’t have to travel a great distance to get to maps.
“Also, some spots in the summer in Lower Mainland, BC, and New Brunswick, for examples, are thick and not very pleasant.”
Taking second behind Ereaux in the short advanced was Whitehorse’s Dahria Beatty, a multiple-time national medalist. Taking third was Kendra Murray, another multiple medal winner at the national level, who this summer will be competing at her first Junior World Orienteering Championships.
Also going to the junior worlds is Whitehorse’s Lee Hawkings, making his third and last appearance.
“Dahria Beatty was also selected, but she declined,” said Langbakk. “She’s going to focus on skiing.”
In the intermediate division, Darren Halcombe took first by exactly a minute over Jeremy Johnson. Taking third was junior Leif Blake.
For novice, Finn Pearson took first with almost half the time of second-place’s Kate and Tayler Mitchell, who competed as a team. In third was Kelly Munroe.
The small weekly meets hosted by the Yukon association are laying the groundwork for a huge season.
This summer, Whitehorse will be hosting both the Western Canadian Championships and the Canadian Championships over consecutive weekends in July.
“It’s a really big deal, so we’ve been working really hard on that,” said B Meet organizer Ryan Kelly. “We’re expect people from across Canada and some people from the States, as well as from overseas, to show up.”
So far, 156 competitors are registered for the Canadian Championships, including orienteerers from Australia, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, Sweden, United States, New Zealand and the Czech Republic.
Team Yukon had unprecedented success at the Canadian Orienteering Championships in Ottawa last year. The Yukon crew took in a total of 27 medals, 10 more than the previous year and 15 more than in 2008.
“We have a really good group this year and we’re looking forward to having nationals here,” said Langbakk, who coaches Yukon’s juniors. “I think we’ll have some good results.”
This year’s Yukon Orienteering Championships will be held over three Wednesday evenings in a one-month period beginning with the sprint distance event on June 1.
RESULTS
Long advanced
1st Brent Langbakk - 52:36
2nd Forest Pearson - 62:13
3rd Pam James - 77:09
4th Trevor Bray - 86:38
5th Kris Gardner - 120:52
6th Nansen Murray - 123:18
Short advanced
1st Graham Ereaux - 29:04
2nd Dahria Beatty - 38:51
3rd Kendra Murray - 39:59
4th Kerstin Burnett - 44:16
5th Barbara Scheck - 52:06
6th Philippa McNeil - 54:39
7th Doug Hitch - 55:11
8th Tori Owen - 62:17
9th Bruce McLean - 65:50
10th Jim Hawkings - 71:55
11th Jill Pangman - 74:58
12th Wendy Tayler - 103:57
13th Cheylsea Mitchell - 104:00
14th Nesta Leduc - 108:28
15th Craig Brooks - 125:17
Intermediate
1st Darren Halcombe - 36:58
2nd Jeremy Johnson - 37:58
3rd Leif Blake - 47:48
4th Grant Abbott - 52:50
5th Lara Melnik - 56:39
6th Janna Swales - 59:13
7th Caelan McLean - 59:31
8th Mike Gladish - 59:35
9th Amanda Thomson - 73:08
10th Cathy MacDonald - 73:38
11th Savannah Cash 73:42
12th Hannah Jirousek 73:45
13th Bob Jickling 74:31
14th Perry Hynes 81:18
15th Adrienne Hynes 81:19
16th Tracey Taylor 83:10
17th Linda MacKeigan 93:13
18th Alice Palmer 106:08
19th Jenny Duncons/Lauren McClintok - 113:43
Novice
1st Finn Pearson - 11:59
2nd Kate/Tayler Mitchell - 21:43
3rd Kelly Munroe - 22:18
4th Mettias Schmidt - 26:15
5th Nichollis Schmidt - 26:20
6th Sonjaa Schmidt - 26:38
7th Wendy Nixon - 28:38
8th Anne Tayler - 35:59
9th Daniel Sennett - 37:29
10th Marshal Latham - 40:46
11th Domonic Bratford - 72:11
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com