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2004 Announcement Winsplits 2003 Results 2001 Results 2000 Results 1998 Results 1997 Results 1996 Results 1995 ResultsShell Ridge - Results
Date: Sunday, March 7, 2004
Location: Walnut Creek, CA.
Event Director: - 925-516-7622
Course Setters: François Léonard, Laura McKeegan, and Rob Clima
Event Type: B; Regular Event, all seven courses
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Writeup by - François Léonard
This year's event at Shell Ridge was well attended: 270 competitors scoured the hills of Shell Ridge looking for that elusive control marker on a warm and sunny day (March Madness ?). The white and yellow courses were set and designed by Laura McKeegan and Rob Clima, while François Léonard designed the advanced courses. The first surprise of the day was the locked gate at Northgate High School, were parking had been advertised. Why the gate was locked still remains a mystery, as it never had been in the past. Because of the large turn-out and the warm weather, we ran out of drinking water on the advanced courses for the late starters; apologies to those who were affected.
The terrain at Shell Ridge is mostly open, with only the northern portion of the park being forested. This, coupled with the steep terrain and the request from the park ranger that we not cross over fences, put some serious constraints on course design. The advanced courses all had about 6.5% climb and were not terribly long. Most of the legs were not technically difficult, except for a couple of controls on each course that demanded more attention. The course setter's favorite advanced courses were the red and orange courses. The red course had some interesting route-choice legs, while the orange course had several risk/reward legs for the intermediate orienteer.
The green, red and blue courses visited a corner of the map that required a gate crossing. On the way back, the same gate had to be used, requiring a strenous climb out of a re-entrant. To my surprise, most of the competitors followed the red route shown on the right, which required a very steep climb at the end of the re-entrant. While setting up the advanced courses, I went through this leg several times, and always took the blue route. And every time I was glad I didn't have to climb up the steep part of that re-entrant. I never imagined that anybody would follow the red route, so it definitely was not my intention to inflict mental pain by having the competitors walk along that (easily) crossable fence...
The brown through blue courses shared one leg (brown 5-6, green 5-6, red 4-5, blue 7-8), shown in the figure at left. You can compare your time on this leg with the other competitors by looking at the winsplits file. The 4 fastest splits were Thiago Ghilardi 1:24, Eric Bone 1:27, CJ Powers 1:30, and Vladimir Gusiatnikov 1:34.
The white course was won by Mat and Steve Eriksen, with 9 year olds Karel Bachand and Connor Sanchez in second place. In Karel's own words: "this was more fun than skateboarding". (O.K. I made that up).
Terry Farrah won the yellow course convincingly, and was first woman on orange; obviously, the private instruction she is receiving is paying off. The busy day at registration did not faze James Wilson, who won the orange course by 9 minutes. The brown course was dominated by the "A" team, although Mr. T was nowhere to be seen. On green, Misha lipatov was followed by Dennis Wildfogel and Takashi Irie, while Stacy Goss was first woman.
On the red course, Tapio Karras had the fastest split to the first control to take the lead, and maintained that advantage throughout the course. Vivian Lee came in first on the woman's side. Eric Bone won the blue course by 1:43 over Vladimir Gusiatnikov, with Syd Reader another 19 seconds back. Vlad lead the race up to control 8, but a 30 second difference on the next control gave Eric the lead, which he kept to the end of the race. Eric had the fastest splits on 10 of the 21 controls. Penny DeMoss was the first woman on blue, followed by Claire Warner. Claire had the fastest split of all the competitors on blue on the fourth control.
Thanks to the volunteers who helped with the event. A special thanks to Bob Cooley, who was just about ready to start on his course when we realized we were running out of maps for the blue course. He was kind enough to delay his start and print extra maps.
Shell Ridge Open Space Walnut Creek, CA Sunday, March 7, 2004 Results Pl Name Time White Course (2.1 km, 130 m climb, 12 controls) 1 Matt & Steve Eriksen 29:19 2 Karel Bachand & Connor Sanchez 35:40 3 John Regin 37:27 4 Kate Lenschau 44:10 5 Tonsing group 46:14 6 Casey Hansen 46:38 7 Kris & Zachary Smith 46:42 8 McCandless group 47:22 9 Hofstetter/Van Fossen group 48:32 10 Moorehead team 49:49 11 Marina Jaehn 52:20 12 Pack 210 Den 18 57:12 13 Aris & Angie Deleon 1:00:38 14 Patterson clan 1:01:00 15 Santi group 1:02:13 16 Croce group 1:02:27 17 Carol Kummerer 1:03:30 18 Matt & Chris Welch 1:06:58 19 Sheehy group 1:07:30 20 Koehler, Thomas, Riley group 1:08:05 21 Smith group 1:09:13 22 Judy Vuong & Andrew Leung 1:14:48 23 Hengel group 1:15:45 24 Monica & Elke Behrens 1:36:23 Sarah & Katie Petersen DNF Ramana & Anand Mallela DNS Yellow Course (3.0 km, 160 m climb, 15 controls) 1 Terry Farrah 45:14 2 Todd Paulsen 49:42 3 Terry Pratt 51:30 4 Ruth Cunningham 51:31 5 Fermina Quinones & Heather Green 1:00:11 6 Jukka Karras 1:08:26 7 Want group 1:10:55 8 Kreiss group 1:13:38 9 David & Cathy Rice 1:13:52 10 Kathy & Mitch Allan 1:13:59 11 Kevin Walker 1:20:48 12 Trevor Pering & Lucy Clark 1:22:50 13 Sheehy group 1:25:29 14 Lei Xiao 1:26:14 15 Marina Shoffer 1:33:39 16 Maja Gray & Ann O'Hara 1:33:28 17 Shannon Phares & LauraLynn Jansen 1:35:23 18 Isabel & Christina Souto group 1:37:15 19 Chris Bragg & Robin Pomerance 1:46:40 20 Carl & Gavin Williams 1:47:19 21 Polik group 1:50:57 22 Quess & Shenghui Liu 1:53:15 23 Galena Shakhnovsny 1:54:18 24 Katherine Batcheller 2:19:00 25 Sovulewski group 2:40:59 Pack 210 Den 18 1:42:30 (second course) Karel Bachand & Connor Sanchez DNF (second course) Bevan Waite MSP (#10) Orange Course (2.7 km, 180 m climb, 10 controls) 1 James Wilson 39:15 2 Ernst, Wickman 48:17 3 Todd Paulsen 55:42 4 "A" Team 57:18 5 Eric Prestemon 1:03:14 6 Roberts, Bond 1:04:08 7 Terry Farrah 1:04:50 8 Hurley, Tate 1:08:35 9 Taylor & Quincy Fong 1:14:07 10 Patalinghug, Dobleman 1:19:27 11 Nina Wyatt-Mair 1:25:37 12 Souto, Strauss 1:26:20 13 Daniel & Manfred Kopisch 1:30:55 14 Kelsey Wyatt-Mair 1:31:29 15 Kent Hetherwick 1:33:57 16 Scott Bower 1:34:53 17 Chelsea Waite 1:37:14 18 Ramana Yerneni 1:43:42 19 Jim Fish 1:47:36 20 Scaer Ciavetta 1:56:02 21 Chad Davis 1:57:16 22 Weis, Johnson, & Morano 2:04:48 23 Hongche & Gus Liu 2:09:24 24 Ev & Jean Beuerman 2:52:12 Shifman, Fong DNF Jaremiah Sumagit, Tim Gravier DNF Ruth Cunningham DNF Charlotte Nix DNF James Earhart DNF Brown Course (3.0 km, 210 m climb, 12 controls) 1 The "A" Team 45:39 2 Beth, Bergkessel, & Bradshaw 51:45 3 Doug Masiel 52:57 4 Scott Aster 56:48 5 Kordan, Zuchero 59:58 6 Harold DeMoss 1:01:31 7 Bud Laird 1:04:52 8 Bastis Bower 1:05:52 9 Leslie Minarik 1:08:43 10 Oleg Shakhnovsky 1:09:24 11 Jasper Wu 1:10:40 12 Chris Delp 1:13:21 13 Meg Gerstner 1:15:26 14 Svetlana Kopeikina 1:16:10 15 Vicki Woolworth 1:16:58 16 Van Horne 1:19:47 17 Kamini Singha 1:21:00 18 Trinka Gillis 1:39:05 19 Dean French 1:39:48 20 Arwen Wyatt-Mair 1:44:45 21 Alan LaVergne 1:46:42 22 Nancy Lindeman 2:01:55 23 Gordon, Houser 2:20:54 Joan Roos DNF Green Course (4.1 km, 295 m climb, 15 controls) 1 Misha Lipatov 48:42 2 Dennis Wildfogel 51:45 3 Takashi Irie 53:19 4 Malcom Wyatt-Mair 53:57 5 Eric Rosenzweig 58:30 6 Evan Custer 58:43 7 George Minarik 59:47 8 Bob Cooley 1:05:24 9 William Gilmore 1:06:28 10 Alan Glendinning 1:09:10 11 Russell Neilson 1:09:24 12 Bobby Poon 1:15:35 13 Stacy Goss 1:17:25 14 Bob Strauss 1:18:19 15 Peter Graham 1:20:04 16 Bjorn Wilderstrom 1:20:20 17 David Jorgensen 1:23:00 18 Gerry Goss 1:26:39 19 Steve Perez, Joe Knapp 1:27:08 20 Janet Petersen 1:35:18 21 Rob Clima, Laura McKeegan 1:45:19 22 Jennifer Kerr (GCO) 1:46:20 23 Mark Rice 1:53:34 24 Robert Lewis 2:05:51 25 Steve Beuerman 2:10:51 26 Vic Revenko 2:16:41 Bud Laird DNF Red Course (5.0 km, 330 m climb, 14 controls) 1 Tapio Karras 56:16 2 Kent Ohlund 1:00:51 3 Derek Maclean 1:00:58 4 Hannu Haarma 1:02:08 5 Jim Waite 1:04:32 6 Dan Greene 1:06:08 7 Mark Petersen 1:10:00 8 Doug Bass 1:11:32 9 Eric Rosenzweig 1:11:52 10 Rod Jaehn 1:13:32 11 Tony Pinkham 1:17:20 12 Alexy Shulgin 1:21:17 13 Vivian Lee 1:22:14 14 Deron van Hoff 1:22:28 15 Gary Kraght 1:23:04 16 Dan Holman 1:24:13 17 Michael Behrens 1:30:48 18 Chuck Spalding 1:31:05 19 Thiago Ghilardi 1:50:33 20 Bernhard Hiller 2:04:12 Mark & Molly Jimenez DNF Kohavi Riesenfeld DNF Blue Course (6.0 km, 375 m climb, 21 controls) 1 Eric Bone 57:08 2 Vladimir Gusiatnikov 58:51 3 Syd Reader 59:10 4 Keith Tonkin 1:03:26 5 Steve Gregg 1:04:54 6 Matthias Kohler 1:07:31 7 Rex Winterbottom 1:08:30 8 Andrejus Masalkovas 1:10:11 9 Mike Prindiville 1:12:56 10 CJ Powers 1:14:06 11 Mark Prior 1:17:06 12 Nik Weber 1:24:07 13 Penny DeMoss 1:25:14 14 Attila Nagy 1:25:21 15 Mark Blair 1:27:06 16 Jon Borwick 1:28:11 17 Stephen Price 1:31:45 18 Peter Graube 1:38:44 19 Claire Warner 1:47:14 20 Gregory Khanlarov 1:57:01 21 Artem Stemkovski 2:07:24 22 Bark, Heady, & Moorhead 2:32:56 23 Vlad Bolshakov 2:37:55 _______________ DNF = Did not finish (did no punch one or more controls) MSP = Mispunch (one or more incorrect controls) DNS = Did Not Start