CAOC women return from Virginia as U.S. Champions

Clark Maxfield, Club News Editor

Three CAOC women and one man brought home top awards from the 2002 U.S. Orienteering Championships held in Prince William Forest in northern Virginia on November 2-3. The contest was held on a new mapping of the huge forest preserve that features mostly open oak forests covering a complex ridge and valley system of surprisingly technical detail. Few trails or roads mar the area, so once you lose contact with the map, you can remain lost for hours since there are few recognizable features to permit relocation.

Sarah Klaben, daughter of long-time Club members Gary and Debbie, won the F-18 class by beating all others on Saturday's Brown course by an insurmountable margin that was enough to allow her to place third on Sunday and still retain the Championship:

Natalia Babeti, last year's Club champion, won the F45+ class, open to all women 45 and over, despite a significant problem on Saturday which she narrowly made up on Sunday, beating famed orienteer Sandy Fillebrown of Delaware Valley by a mere 9 seconds for the weekend:

Julie Sehnal, daughter of Joe Sehnal, tied for first in F-Open on the Green course, competing against much older women, by maintaining consistancy while everyone else had problems on one day or the other:

Among the CAOC men, Kevin Teschendorf, running for the Badger Orienteering Club of Wisconsin, won the tough M40+ class on the Red course, by about a minute on both days, enough to win the weekend decisively:

Congratulations to Sarah Klaben for her outstanding Saturday run and Natalia Babeti for her come-from-behind thriller on Sunday.

Other CAOC members who competed in the 2002 Championships included Charlie Shahbazian and Gary Klaben (M45+ Red - 11th and 20th places, respectively), Clark Maxfield and Michael Schneiderman (M60+ Green - 5th and 12th places, respectively), John Klaben (M-12 White - 5th place), and Maricel Olaru, Flavius Craciunas and Mikhail Pekour (M-21+ Blue - 11th, 22nd and 33rd, respectively).

More information on the results, as well as individual leg-by-leg SportIdent splits, may be obtained from the Quantico Orienteering Club web site. If you have never seen SportIdent splits before, you might enjoy browsing these, they are becoming common at the U.S. Championships and some other A-meets, and give the sport a whole new dimension.

Next year's U.S. Championships will be held at 6200' on September 13-14 near Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada state line. This area promises to require slow, methodical orienteering because of the extreme elevation changes and large amount of deadfall: 50% of the map is advertised as "slow running."