Newspaper Article 2017 – Octogenarian still plots

Octogenarian still plots

Got maps, will run says Bay enthusiast

Anendra Singh
Sports Editor

Orienteering
Hawke’s Bay

HE has an affinity with the terrain and flora but ask Alan Berry why he chose orienteering when he could have opted for myriad other sports, he doesn’t beat around the bush.

“There are a lot of things, of course, I couldn’t do because I’m not a true athlete,” says Berry, a member of the Hawke’s Bay Orienteering Club who still competes in the M80 division.

“I’ve played many sports badly, as you do,” he says with a laugh.

The 82-year-old semi-retired accountant from Hastings, who last worked for the firm Staples Rodway, took up orienteering in 1993 after giving up squash when his body began to show the rigours of time.

“Even non-athletes may aspire to some degree of success because it’s a thinking sport as well as a physical sport.”

The critical difference for Berry is that a person of average fitness or physical ability can hope to compete alongside someone who is a comparatively superior athlete.

That athletes are required to stop to read maps before making choices to move in the next direction modifies the first-past-the-post aspect of any race.

“It’s an acquired skill that goes with the physical attributes. You may be a better runner than I am but I may be a better map reader than you are so I’d hope to keep up with you, I’d like to think.”

For the record, Berry is adept at matters pertaining to map reading and has made a sizeable contribution to the sport in the department.

“The mapping field is quite an extended one so I’ve done a lot of field work and cartography for orienteering mapping,” he says, which included club, national and international events.

When Berry joined it had 70 members but now that has mushroomed to around 260 although it had peaked at about 330 a few years ago.

He has retired from the offices of the club, including the role of auditor, but is still involved with mapping although he has relinquished the event-controlling aspect as well.

It did help that the past president of the Bay club had a tramping background dating back 65 years, something he attributes to the countless number of hours went on to spend indoor on his way to becoming a chartered accountant.

“I was very much at home in the mountains and bushes so it was as though orienteering became an extension of that.”

Tramping, he emphasises, is also map-reading activity but to a more intense degree.

Realising in his late 50s his speed and agility were diminishing, it also dawned on him there weren’t too many squash players on the scene in their 80s.

Over the years, Berry has found peers leaving the orienteering landscape but he has continued to find traction regionally and nationally.

“You find other people retire or they can’t any longer continue with the activities so you become the last man standing.”

Berry doesn’t suffer from pangs of isolation because the only time club competitions become age-specific event is during the Hawke’s Bay Championship.

“In most events, I run in the men’s 60-plus [division].

“I accept the fact that I’m not going to win so it’s just me against the course – it’s just you against the mountain as opposed to other people.”

To put the competitions in perspective, Berry points out not everyone in their 60s tend to stick to their division. Some drop to the M40s to gauge their worth at a higher grade.

“There are other in my 50-plus age group who beat me quite comfortably.”

Ian Holden, 84, of Nelson, will be in the M80 division with him at the nationals to be staged in the Bay during Labour Day weekend in October.

The 10-time nationals veteran last competed at that level when it was staged here six years ago when he ran in the M75 category and won the crown.

“My only [claim to fame] is that my rival made a bigger mistake than I did.”

He suspects Holden may be the only other peer at the nationals here but that status may change once the entries are confirmed in the coming weeks.

“We know each other quite well and I’m perfectly comfortable in that I have a competitor.

“He’s a faster runner than I am so I’ll have to rely on my fitness to beat him.”

It isn’t lost on Berry that Holden is just as adroit an orienteer and been on the circuit relatively as long as he has been, if not longer.

“On the day it’ll depend on who makes the better choices and performs the skills of orienteering so he’s the better athlete and I’ll have to try to outplay him.”

Having input in mapping, he points out, doesn’t give him any advantages because the course setters outline the routes.

His partner, Raewyn Ricketts, is an avid tramper but hasn’t been compelled to take up orienteering, a family sport.

“She has come out to orienteering on a more social basis but her interests are more in tramping.”

His son, Ross Berry, 57, of Hastings, has intermittently engaged in the sport but, like Ricketts, is sold on tramping.

So how long does Berry see himself clipping in his sheets at myriad control stations on the orienteering circuits?

“As long as I can keep putting one foot in front of another.”

Photo captions –

IN CONTROL: Semi-retired accountant Alan Berry, 82, of Hastings, intends to stick with orienteering as long as he can put one foot in front of the other.
PHOTO/WARREN BUCKLAND

Raewyn Ricketts