Discussion: Australian National League - all-time stats

I've just finished collating various statistics on the Australian National Orienteering League. This has now been going for 24 years. There have been a total of 335 races scheduled (although one was cancelled, and one was voided in all classes).

The ranking order of those who have won 20 or more races is as follows:

42 Julian Dent
42 Hanny Allston
41 Jo Allison
37 Dave Shepherd
36 Nicki Taws
34 Rob Walter
31 Natasha Key (Rowe)
27 Matt Crane
26 Grant Bluett
24 Simon Uppill

(Oddly enough, Warren Key (13) is the only other man who's won more than 6, although amongst the women, Grace Crane, Kathryn Preston, Vanessa Round, Lizzie Ingham and Rachel Effeney are all in the teens).

Amongst the juniors, Belinda Lawford and Matt Doyle lead the way with 24 and 20 respectively.

Maybe those girls were in the teens when they started in the NOL but they're not now.

I suspect Jo will have the outright lead in that list this after a few races year.

Most podiums without a win?

Highest winning percentage? Compensating for the likely higher number of starts for most of the people on that list, since I think only Hanny and Simon are not Vic/NSW/ACT? (I'm quite likely to be wrong on that)

How about most kilometres traveled to get to NOL events?

I'm actually quite surprised only one was cancelled because I believe that was M21E at Easter 2011.

The cancelled race will have been the relay at Kooyora in March 2004 - because of extreme fire danger. The race where all classes were voided (yes, a few events over the years, such as the one you're referring to, have had at least one class voided) was presumably due to a misplaced control which affected both the men's and women's courses at Hepburn/the Blowhole in about March 2000 (back when we didn't have junior classes)?

Now do one for MTBO!

MTBO is not a sport. Get out... :D

The one with all classes voided was a (bush) sprint in Tasmania in 2004 (thanks to an SI meltdown) - day 1 at Easter 2008 at Dubbo was voided for all classes except junior women. The Blowhole 2000 was voided for women only, not men, and there have been a few others voided in one class.

I suspect the biggest winning percentage is Ralph Street (6 out of 8). Probably Hanny of those who've done a reasonable number of events.

Most kilometres travelled? Probably Craig or Rachel.

One could argue that you'd need to do bush events to be included in any statistics :-)

I think I would have done more km to get to NOLs than the west aussies due to the number of races attended. Rachel E would have clocked up a fair few km coming from cairns and townsville the last few years.

You are forgetting that Canberra is central to everything so you have to exclude kilometres traveled to go there.

I was only counting km traveled to leave.

Good old WA people crying about travel. It never ends!

If it bothers you so much, move :)

I'm trying, believe me! Not necessarily to Canberra though (although I could be there for 18 months if all goes to plan).

I actually find it more amusing that people from the east complain about their once-every-four-years trips to WA for NOL events rather than the other way around (I go interstate roughly 8-10 times per year).

My XPD teammate Kev (from Victoria - he's done all nine so far) says he wouldn't do it if held in WA because it's too far. Seriously? I've been to three in Qld, two in Tassie and two in Vic/NSW but you wouldn't come to WA once - sheesh!

Actually thinking about it, how many M21E reps were there from ACT at last year's ultra-long in SA? None? That's right, it was too far to travel.

Go on then tRicky, I'll obligingly rise to your stir. I count one - Eric Morris (not our fault he still runs for the Stingers). Versus three from WA. Saving in travel time to Flinders Ranges from ACT versus Perth: 1.5hrs. Population of WA 2.6 million versus ACT 360,000.

via GIPHY

But now things are getting interesting

Thanks Blair, look what you started.

I'll bite!! :P

So that is 4 Western Nomads out of 15 in the state squad that went and 1 Stinger out of (how many in the squad) that came along?

I think comparing to the state total population is a bit silly :)

tRicky you're right to call out the non-Euclidian nature of distance (A-B is not necessarily the same as B-A). I suspect that some in the northern hemisphere feel that its a long way to compete in the southern hemisphere.

Tash I don't need help making a nuisance of myself but if you want to get technical, there were actually 12 Nuggets, 9 Arrows, 9 Foresters, 8 Nomads, 5 Cyclones, 5 Stingers, 5 Cockatoos and a random Kiwi across the Elite classes (per state associations rather than residential addresses). The M20E class put us all to shame.

.. and a partridge in a pear tree.

The M20E participation can presumably be attributed to its being a JWOC trial - and the Kiwi wasn't entirely random, but making a social call on his way to the northern hemisphere pre-JWOC :)

The difference is that when don't want to run or travel we simply don't go.

We don't whinge about it on every AP thread any chance we get.

tRicky - SA appreciated all the Western Nomads putting in the effort to come to the Ultra Long (and all the others who came as well).

Dave - who said anything about not *wanting* to travel?

Lazydave - to be fair to the Nomads they simply didn't go to the St Helens NOLs last year.

Dunno where I was whinging, unless the mere mention of Canberra in a WA related post is seen as a whinge but usually it's preceded by 'those bloody politicians'.

My comment related to something Andrew Lumsden said in last year's Events Committee meeting so I use every opportunity to pass that info on ;-)

Its not about willingness to travel, but need to travel. The marginal lost competition cost of not travelling is much less in canberra...