Ross Morrison from Hawkes Bay has put all his dedicated training in Europe this year to premium use with a brilliant run to take out tenth place at the World Games in Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei.
After winning the Sprint race at Britain's biggest orienteering event the JK Festival, Morrison went on to train in Denmark and win the Danish Park Tour sprint race series.
This is New Zealand's first foray at the World Games and our best result at World level since Alistair Landels won the World Cup at Woodhill, Auckland in 1994.
Orienteers around the World watching the event with live GPS tracking were treated to the sight of the lead switching repeatedly between recent World Champions Andrey Khramov (Russia) and Daniel Hubman (Switzerland.
Khramov eventually prevailed by only 1.6 seconds ahead of Hubman and Finish orienteer Tero Foehr.
Attention turns to the Middle distance race on July 18 at Chengcing Lake, Kaohsiung, where the New Zealand team of Morrison, Darren Ashmore, Tania Larsen and Lizzie Ingham will attempt to surpass the great 10th place from Morrison and 14th place (Larsen) in the Sprint.
Results: World Games Orienteering Sprint Men
| 1. | Andrey Khramov | RUS | 13:11.2 |
| 2. | Daniel Hubmann | SUI | 13:12.8 |
| 3. | Tero Foehr | FIN | 13:46.5 |
| 4. | Oeystein Kvaal Oesterboe | NOR | 13:49.1 |
| 5. | Matthias Mueller | SUI | 14:00.7 |
| 6. | Lars Skjeset | NOR | 14:07.2 |
| 7. | Peter Oeberg | SWE | 14:10.4 |
| 8. | Mattias Millinger | SWE | 14:11.7 |
| 9. | Tomas Dlabaja | CZE | 14:12.6 |
| 10. | Ross Morrison | NZL | 14:29,8 |
| ... | |||
| 30. | Darren Ashmore | NZL | 15:44,8 |
