Previous Coaches

Atte Lahtinen

I had dreamt about a position like this for years and then it turned out this program existed in Australia! I waited for a year until the moment was right, and went for it.

The scholarship with Orienteering NSW was special because it was a mobile placement. I lived in two regional cities – Orange and Coffs Harbour and in Sydney. This  made me see there’s more to Australia than just the capitals. My initial plan was to spend 7 months in Australia but I loved it so much I extended my stay to almost 9 months.  I got to stay with many, very different but all warmly welcoming families, and so got to truly experience the culture the way one should.

Being the first one to come to NSW wasn’t always easy, but I’m leaving with only positive feelings. It really doesn’t matter if you’re not an elite runner; I have never been one yet I had a lot to give (and learn) and had a blast! I was new to mapping when I arrived, but have now completed 20+ maps. The best of it all was not the traveling to NZ, Tasmania, or Victoria, but doing things with the juniors! I will never forget my first week in Australia, as I got to know some awesome people and had fun with the young talent.

Back in Finland I gave back by hosting some Australian  individuals I had made friends with and helping them with JWOC preparation.

Charlotte Watson

The scholarship programme in the ACT is a fantastic opportunity. As a scholar you coach a wide range of ages and abilities in  different settings and have the freedom and opportunity to develop skills in areas that interest you.  

Some examples are coaching in schools, promoting orienteering, teaching beginners, coaching at an advanced level, mapping and event organisation. Seeing how orienteering is set up in another country and experiencing different terrains was great fun and has definitely made me a better coach and orienteer. You meet amazing people and staying with different families throughout is a really fun part of the experience.

Over the summer holidays there are opportunities to travel both for training camps throughout Australia but also to do a bit of  sightseeing. The Blue Mountains, Warumbungle National Park, Tasmania, New Zealand, Alpine National Park and Nadgee Beach Wilderness area are just a few of the awesome places I got to visit. The orienteering community in Australia is very friendly and I have made some great friends and I can’t thank everyone in Canberra enough for their kindness, hospitality and support during my time in Australia. I have had an awesome time and will definitely be coming back to visit!  

Christoph Prunsche

“The work as an Orienteering coach here in Tasmania is amazing not just because of beautiful terrain like “Pittwater” and the breathtaking landscape, but also because of all the young and keen runners and all the friendly orienteers in general. Compared to Germany, which is a very urbanized country, the Tasmanian landscape is just breathtaking and so is doing Orienteering here.”

“Besides that I helped to organize a training camp together with Brodie Nankervis for the Tasmanian Juniors in St. Helens, another great experience! We had some very good training days and a lot of fun together. Once again it is hard to not be jealous of all the beautiful Tasmanian forests, especially up in St. Helens. Back home in Germany most forests are not as technically demanding as here, because we have heaps of roads going through them, while during our training camp I was running on a road only twice – just like it should be!”

Emil Granqvist

“Visiting Canberra has been an experience for life. It has given me so much, and I have developed in so many ways during my stay. From the first day everybody has been so friendly and welcoming, and I now know so many people here that it feels sad to leave.”

“The scholarship is an amazing opportunity to see another part of the world while doing something productive and appreciated. Living with orienteering families is a great way of seeing Australian culture and get thrown into the everyday life.”

“During my stay I have helped out with coaching individuals and groups, setting trainings, putting out and collecting controls and organizing events. It has been very enjoyable and fun to work with other people and see them develop. Especially working with the talented juniors who are not much younger than me, and work together with them to reach their goals towards a selection for JWOC in the coming years.”

“The work in Orienteering ACT took up a fair bit of time, but at the same time I have had great opportunity to train and focus on my own development as an elite orienteer. With coaching only taking up a few hours, most days I had time to train twice if I wanted to.  With good bush maps, mountainbike trails, a running track and lots of different gyms the training opportunities was great and I felt almost like living professional life. I ran the Twilight sessions every week, did intervals with the juniors and could prepare well for the Easter Carnival in March, which led to a victory in the WRE middle distance!”

Frederic Tranchand and Saara Norrgrann

We had 6 fantastic months in Canberra! It’s a wonderful place to live and practice orienteering as well as other outdoor activities, a rather small city near the nature where everything is accessible. We have been very well welcomed by the friendly orienteering community and it has been a lot of fun to do volunteering activities in such nice environment. Moreover, we have been impressed by how active the clubs are, with over 100 events per year well organized around the OACT association.

We also really like the principle of Sporting Schools; It’s a very good way to teach specific sports as orienteering by “experts” in the discipline. The children, especially the primary school students, are usually extremely enthusiasts and happy to run around their school with a map, so it has been a lot of fun for us to coach them.

We’ve also got really inspired and fascinated by some of the remarkable activities organized by OACT such as the groups “Focus On Girl” (FOG) and “Blue Lightning”, as well as the fun SCORE relay series for primary school children.

Hopefully, our little contributions would support the orienteering development locally and in all Australia. We brought some of our knowledges from Finland and France, and while coaching regular consistent training, we tried to give solid physical and technical bases for the Canberra orienteers, and we wish that the weekly sessions would continue.

To conclude, we have loved to be coach in residence in Canberra, and we will remember this amazing experience forever!

Fred and Saara were interviewed for local TV here.

You can find a translation of Fredo’s article in the French Le magazine de la Course Orientation magazine here or the French version in CO 138 here.

Grace Molloy

I have had an incredible 6 months in Australia where I was the scholar in NSW. I was hosted by lovely families in Orange, Sydney and Coffs Harbour and I also made trips to Perth, Adelaide, Ballarat, Canberra and New Zealand for a mixture of training camps, competitions and holidays. My main tasks included organising training sessions and running events for both juniors and adults, coaching in schools and making sprint maps. I also coached the NSW junior team at the Australian Championships and at a training camp in Ballarat and these were two of the highlights of my trip. Everyone I met was extremely welcoming and I am especially grateful to my host families. I would love to come back to Australia in the future and I will be recommending the programme to any enthusiastic orienteers in Britain.

Jacob Lindstam

The Orienteering ACT (OACT) Scholarship is a great opportunity. Having the privilege of being a part of the culture and community instead of looking through the window as a tourist is unbeatable. I’ve been getting tons of new experiences and got to know a lot of fantastic, kind and generous people. The big bonus has been to contribute to OACT with orienteering as an occupation, making the scholarship a win-win for all involved. Meeting both similarities and differences has made life here interesting, learning and definitely challenging in the best of ways.

During my stay in Canberra I’ve taught orienteering in schools, helped out when I could in my club (Parawanga Orienteers), and organized and coached at OACT training events and weekend camps for all ages at all levels. Each activity has been awesome thanks to all the keen and happy local Aussie orienteers participating and making it memorable.

There has been a fair bit of time for travel during the summer break and to see different things. From Tasmania in the south to New Zealand in the east, a lot of nice nature around Canberra, the Australian coast, the Blue Mountains etc. and of course a lot of different maps and terrains to discover.

I can warmly recommend this scholarship for those who have a passion and love for orienteering and collecting new experience.

I would like to thank everyone I’ve met during my stay here, no matter if it was a brief or a longer acquaintance. Thank you for all the kindness and making these past months special. If you ever find yourself heading my way on the other side of the globe please stop by.

Jacob Lindstam

Jakob Edsen

Danish sprint and middle specialist Jakob Edsen visited Melbourne, Victoria to coach and train in 2014/15. He led coaching sessions at Victoria’s sprint series and set courses and trainings across the state. and got to compete and train on maps in four states in Australia. He says of his trip “I made some great friends and had an amazing time visiting some great parts of Australia”. He competed in Australian championships, state championships and World cup races. He and his Danish colleagues did a four week road trip over the Christmas holidays but loved having Christmas in the summer.

Jeremy Genar

Tasmania was paradise! So much walking and nature!

The Coaching in Residence Scholarship was definitely one of the best choices I made in my life. It exceeded all expectations. Staying with a host family is one of the best ways to get involved in the Australian way of life and me and Silke had an incredible time with our ‘new parents’. Spending your time on orienteering (as a job) is just the best thing in the world… Don’t dream on but sign up for the time of your life! 😉 Thanks to Orienteering Tasmania for the opportunity, we are forever grateful!

Katie Reynolds

I was based in Canberra with Jacob and Charlotte and had the most amazing time – I would highly recommend this programme to anyone who is passionate about orienteering and looking for a brilliant coaching experience! During our 6 months we got to plan a real mix of different training sessions and workshops for the club as well as teaching in schools. We also had so many enthusiastic people come along to all our trainings so it felt really worthwhile! Canberra was a great place to be based as there was plenty of orienteering maps nearby which made it easy and convenient to organise sessions. We were kept pretty busy with the orienteering planning, but we also got the chance to travel round and see some awesome places in Australia. From running in the Blue Mountains, to the Oceania Champs in New Zealand, and mountain biking at Mt Stromlo, we really got the chance to do everything. I think for me, it was the people I got to meet, stay with and work with which made it so memorable – everyone was so friendly and kind to us! I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Orienteering ACT so thank you very much OACT members for such a brilliant time. This made it hard to leave… but I will be back to visit for sure.

Kilian Lilje

My time in Tassie was just amazing. First of all, I had the opportunity to spend every day with and about orienteering (the best sport in the world): Map making, course planning, doing orienteering myself, organizing trainings, and exploring all the orienteering maps. There are heaps of motivated young and old orienteers. 

Also, the orienteering community in Tasmania is very big and welcoming. From the first day on I felt welcome. Everyone was interested in me and happy about the work I did. The best Hosts as one can only dream of increased the feeling of being welcome.

The nature in Tasmania is breathtaking, wild, and awesome. I enjoyed it so much discovering Tasmania which is probably one of the best places to be if you love nature and being outside.

Ksenia Torganova

Lukas Frei

“Now I like to say a huge THANK YOU to orienteering ACT for the great time I have had here in Canberra. I really enjoyed it and I learnt a lot about coaching and orienteering in Australia and there was never a problem about expenses.”

Lukas Funk

“The Training days and weekends outside of Canberra were all well participated and all peoples were very happy with it.”

( Note from David Poland –  Lukas was the first ever scholar in this programme)

Manu Jurado

“Living and mapping in the Northern Territory was a dream come true. I was only in Darwin for three months but I was busy!  I made more than 25 maps – schools, rain forest, aboriginal communities in the Outback and red granite terrains in Alice Springs. I had to get used to the tropical weather very fast as I did my mapping during the Wet Season (Monsoon Nov to March). In my two week holiday I went  to the Australian Champs in Cascades Queensland, one of the best maps I have ever run on. Also I had the chance to visit beautiful spots in the Outback like Uluru (Ayer’s Rock), Kata Tjuta, Kings Canyon and Kakadu National Park. I helped Top End Orienteers Club  organize evening events, promoted orienteering in remote and rural areas and helped Kay Haarsma  during the Master Games in Alice Springs.  I think my stay in Australia was a very different to that experienced by scholars in other states. I am proud of what I achieved  in those remote and wild places in Australia. A huge thank you to Lachlan and Susanne for their help and also to all Top End Orienteers who hosted me during my stay in the Northern Territory. Hope to see you all soon!”

Peter Bray

“Living, training and coaching in Australia has been the highlight of my orienteering career so far! It has been an amazing 6 months running in the sunshine – I just wish it could have lasted longer! Victoria state, and Melbourne in particular, is extremely varied and exciting – there is always lots going on. If I’m honest, I wasn’t expecting much from the orienteering terrain and was very pleasantly surprised by the complexity of the gold mining and granite forests (including WOC 1985 areas which are simply awesome). Being able to focus on orienteering for such an extended period has meant a great increase in my physical and technical ability, and a long break over the Christmas period meant there was the opportunity to travel, train in other states and see a lot more of this amazing country.

The host families were extremely welcoming; they are a great bunch of amazing people and I felt very much part of the family. I’ve certainly made some friendships that will last a lifetime. Victoria is full of great orienteers and it was pleasure to coach and give back to the sport I love.”

Ralph Street

“Australia was awesome. If I had to describe it in one word it would be “easy”. It was easy to live there for nearly 6 months, the people were very friendly, relaxed, and helpful; I had a lot of fun living with my host family. The weather was easy, it was warm and comfortable the whole time, just stick on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and you are ready. I had lots of spare time in which to do whatever I wanted, this was really nice for focussing on training or just simply relaxing. I got a lot more out of the orienteering than I thought I was going to, it was a lot more technically demanding than I had expected. I also got a feeling on a couple of maps of total wild remoteness which was fantastic and something I have never really felt in Europe. And finally yes, even by the end of the trip I had still not got over running in the forest and having kangaroos bouncing along beside me.”

Stefano Raus

I lived for 7 months around Adelaide and I did exactly what every orienteering lover and mapper would do. And that was a dream come true! With the support of Aus WOC team members Bridget and Simon, but also with new ideas and visions, my experience there went smoothly (even if I was was the first coach in-residence for SA). I always had lots of juniors, kids, elites and parents at training sessions (from sprint intervals to punching competitions, time-trials and sand dunes training with a map 100% generated from lidar), and we had so many different activities that I’ve been extremely busy.

I stayed with different families and I experienced different cultures: everything is so different than in Europe, from the people’s behaviour to the landscapes, but believe me: it’s unique. If I had some free time, I’ve always used it to make some sprint maps in interesting areas or developing new ideas for o-exercises… maybe it was my fault but I love to be busy with orienteering. Of course I enjoyed spectating the Tour Down Under, the Clipsal 500 and some cricket matches, and I travelled with my new o-friends to NOL events in Queensland, ACT and Tasmania; plus we had a training camp in New Zealand! During these 7 months I added more experiences on my CV and now I got a seat in DP in Sports Coaching and Management at Haaga Helia University in Finland.

Some relevant facts during my 193 days in Australia:

I met 9 cats, I travelled 9,131 km with my car, I held 10 evening teaching sessions, I took 18 flights (with only 1 emergency landing), I recorded 176 activities on Strava, I set approx. 368 courses on Ocad, I organised 38 orienteering trainings (15 forest and 23 sprint) with an average of 13.4 runners per session and I’ve created and updated 24 maps. You can find most of the o-trainings I planned during my stay in South Australia on my DOMA, on my Blog or on the new OSA Youtube Channel, and if you have any question or doubt feel free to contact me on facebook.

Map archive: http://www.trent-o.org/doma/index.php?user=stefano.raus


Blog: http://orimarty-raus.blogspot.it/

(I especially recommend you to read the “A day in SA” post to really feel it)

OSA Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSrZVpB1et3JoeNdvOHh09w

Théo Fleurent

“Coming in Canberra for 7 months was the best decision of my life. I arrived in a wonderful orienteering community and my stay there was awesome.”

“This scholarship program is great. First it is a life experience with the possibility to travel, discover a new country, live in a new city with welcoming host families and meet new people. Australia is a dream destination, and Canberra is the perfect city for outdoors lover with plenty of bush, trails, bike paths and maps at a very close distance.”

“Then the coaching part is great with a lot of various missions: teaching orienteering at school, organising small events for kids, helping with events, preparing training maps, trainings sessions, training weekends, private coaching, mapping, etc. A lot is happening in Canberra for orienteering and be part of it was a great pleasure.”

“I of course recommend this program for any passionate orienteer who likes to travel, and feel free to contact me if you want to know more my experience.”

Thor Norskov

Dane Thor Norskov was one of the first coaching scholars in Melbourne Victoria in 2014/15. He travelled all over Australia and New Zealand and fulfilled his plan to run on some of the best maps in the Southern Hemisphere. His favourite Victorian maps were Kooyoora used for the 1985 World Championships and the infamous Rowdy Flat (gold mining) which he said was “crazy”. Whilst here he ran for Denmark in the World Cup in Tasmania. He helped with junior coaching, running training camps, sprint coaching, mapping and course setting. Since returning to Denmark he has represented Denmark at WOC 2015 so the training must have helped. He continues to coach one of the Victorian juniors from Denmark.