The 2025 champs were held on Wednesday, May 28th at Fred Jacoby Park in glorious sunny weather - cool enough to enjoy running but very pleasant for spectators. Approximately 400 young orienteers participated. It was the first time for many years that both Primary and Secondary schools participated on the same day (14 Secondary and 6 Primary schools).
It was good to see some schools participating for the first time but the same schools battled for the Champion schools trophy, with Christchurch Grammar School pipping St Brigids to win the Primary School trophy by 2 points. Quinns Baptist College retained the Secondary trophy. As expected, participants who are members of OWA put in very strong showings.
The champs could not run without the wonderful help from a large group of volunteers. Special thanks should be given to Rosalie Mc Cauley who did all the work getting permissions for use of the area before she disappeared on holidays, Nick Dale who put in a huge amount of time and effort as setter, working with Ian Fletcher as Controller, Melinda Richards who set up the IT side of things, helped by Jack Dowling on the day. Jan Fletcher took over Rosalie's job after she left, organising the many volunteers on the day who did a great job looking after running the events and keeping all participants safe.
From conversations with staff and students it appears that participants had an enjoyable day. However, having both Primary and Secondary champs on the same day did raise some time issues, as some schools come from quite a distance (e.g. Mandurah and Safety Bay) so struggled to get to the venue and set up before briefing and had to leave before the presentations were finished and in one case before they started. Food for thought when planning begins for 2026.
Results can be be found on Eventor.
Photos: (top) from the left, Archie, Rohan and Ruben with their medals; (below) Quinns Baptist College students. Taken by Rob West.
Ngalak kaaditj nidja Noongar Boodjar. Koora-Yeyi-Kalyakool.