Easy Orientation: Hillary Scholar Angela Simpson has competed in three junior world orienteering championships and is aiming for her fourth.
Orienteers don’t just run; they have to use a compass and read maps while they’re racing, otherwise they get horribly lost.
Waikato University science student Angela Simpson loves the sport and she’s no fair weather athlete. Orienteers run through rivers, swamps, over hills and plains, in rain, searing heat and snow.
She’s been doing it since she was 10, and already the 19-year-old has been to three junior world orienteering championships and is heading for a fourth.
“With orienteering you have to run hard and you’re thinking all the time. Each course has different terrain and presents different challenges – that’s what I like about it,” says Simpson who competed in at the Junior World Orienteering Championships in Denmark last year and if she raises enough money in the next few months will be at the 2011 championships in Poland in July.
Simpson is in her second year of a Bachelor of Science majoring in environmental science and would like to work on improving the integration of healthy ecosystems into New Zealand towns once she graduates at the end of next year. “I am particularly interested in lake water quality and forest ecosystems.”
Her university courses and gym fees are paid because she is a Waikato University Sir Edmund Hillary Scholar. She’s one of 141 scholars who are selected for Waikato University because of their high academic and sporting or artistic ability.
“I’m lucky my Hillary Scholarship pays for my uni courses- it’s less money for me (and my parents) to find for international competition.” She’s on the lookout for a sponsor.
Last year, after competing in Denmark, Simpson represented Waikato and New Zealand Universities at the World University Orienteering Champs in Sweden – the country where orienteering originated. “That was great, going to the home of orienteering, and even better I came sixth in the sprint race.”
Simpson trains at least seven times a week following a schedule with her Auckland-based coach Michael Adams. She has one more year as a junior then will be competing in the open division. “I’ll go as far as I can in the sport. I aim to show the world that New Zealanders can win in this amazing sport.”