WORLD CHAMPION 

Congratulations Aston

Aston Key, a year 10 student at Kew High School, recently went to Europe to pursue his dream of becoming an orienteering champion. He participated in three major orienteering events in Poland, Switzerland and Sweden.

Orienteering is a family of sports that requires navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain, and always moving at speed. Aston has been running since he was very young because his mother also has a great passion for orienteering.

Aston and his family left the country in July to go on holiday then to Poland where Aston competed in the U 16 European Orienteering Championships which he won. It is the first time this race has been won by a non-European and of course the first time by an Australian.

After a great performance in Poland, Aston and his family were off to Switzerland for the Junior World Championships. After the training camp with the team, Aston again ran a long distance of 13km, a middle qualification of 6km, a middle final of 7km  and finally the 3rd leg of the 18 km relay. This time around Aston was there for the final ceremony, but after that he was off to Sweden for his last event.

 The Swedish Five Days is one of the biggest orienteering events in the world; the Swedish are also very good orienteers, because they have got some of the best terrain. Aston ran in the Men’s 16 group in which your outcome is decided by your consistency over the five days. On the first day he finished second, the third day he finished fourth and the fourth day second again. Overall he finished second.

Now Aston is back in Australia at school again and he looks back at a productive and successful “holiday”. As an outcome of his great performance he also got offered sponsorships by a couple of companies that sell running gear. Aston has a lot of years to come and he has plans to keep running and orienteering and he looks forward to upcoming events.

Jerome Thijs

Year 10 Journalism