CNOC Evening Series kicks off at Donadea

When the stress of exams comes around, you know the CNOC summer series isn't going to be to far behind to help transform the stress of the mind to the burning of the legs. The first event this year was in Donadea Forest Park in North Kildare. Eileen Loughman took the lead in planning the course, and the Shorts highly involved in org as usual. Conor took control of the SI, with Don head sausage cook after being relieved of gate duty.

Three courses were on offer, the long at 5.7km and medium at 3.6km. The short course was a quick jaunt around the lake.The faithful began to arrive and vanish into the forest, as the car park filled. The beautiful evening was even tempting out a few of the locals.

On Long the fastest times were Christian Foley Fisher 42:05 and Kevin O Boyle in 42:34, only for the party to be spoiled by Marcus finishing in a time of 40:32. On Medium, Chris Blau ran it home in 35:33 closely followed by the young Sanni Kymalainen of Setanta only 12 seconds back, Brian Hill finished off the top 3 almost 5 mins off Chris. Caoimhe O Boyle contuined her winning form coursing to victory on the Short with Ciana Jones 4 mins back. Nora Casey was 29 mins with six runners clocking in at 32 mins.

Jukola Training in Donadea you say? A commotion at the start saw Seamus O'Boyle, Ruairí Short and Colm Hill take off in a mini mass-start at breakneck speed. People stood back as they accelerated across the car park - what no one saw was the Seamus running to the left, Ruairí and Colm following, Shea stopping and saying, right guys so where are we? The curses and abuse were let out before Ruairí relocated and set the pace. About 30 mins later they re-enter the car park, Colm reaching the map exchange seconds before Seamus, both pick up a medium map and are off again, a few minutes pass and Ruairí enters the map exchange and leaves without breaking step. After completing the Medium course, Seamus cruises in 1:01m clear of Colm - with Ruairí running strongly by himself to finish 5 mins off the pace. (Shea - 9.3km, 32 controls in 55:31!)

The sausages are eaten, the tea is drunk. . . only one thing remains. The car park begins to clear as the sun slowly falls. With tired legs, Ruth, Eileen and anyone else lucky enough to still be around set out to collect the controls at the far reaching parts of the map . . An enjoyable afternoon, and the perfect excuse not to do a bit of study.

Colm Hill

Monster at the IOA AGM

"Frankly, it's a monster". It's not what you expect to hear in Ruth Lynam's sophisticated tones, but this was a good monster.
The juniors have become monstrous .... Ruth and her willing band have become so successful that demand has exceeded supply and she is sending out the call for reinforcements.

It came in a brief pause in the proceedings of an IOA Annual General Meeting being driven on by the Chairman, who has brought a new discipline to the proceedings: sprint AGM.
Tero Mamia's lessons came in handy. Pick only the bits you need to know and read ahead.

At the start the minutes of the 2007 AGM were dispatched in a flash, Officers' reports were loaded into the breech and fired into the crowd, Gatling gun fashion.
Chairman's report, treasurer's: no sooner had you scanned the one page handout than a new officer was standing up.
Printouts were forsaken for web page references; Fergal Reid just gave it to us straight, picking out the key points we needed to know.. publicity some clubs have generated, the difficulty of getting consistent coverage.
Lastly it came to Feargal Buckley(KerryO), fixtures...this could be tricky, but no, Feargal kept it sweet and told us things were good and get the fixtures in.

Next it was motions.
New Treasurer Mary O'Connell (3ROC), put the knife in early and with an eye to expediency wrested our paws gently from the affiliation purse strings, we'll never notice.
Ed Niland was renamed the Coach.
Awards were changed, and we were into the home straight ... election of officers.

Sensing he was going to break 7 min/km the chairman cracked on.
Treasurer, Juniors, High Performance ... nominator, seconder... we rattled through the election of officers.
The nodding heads just threw up their paws when they heard "For the motion" , knowing it would hasten their release from this event, into the bar.

So frenetic was the pace that he himself got out of synch with his script.

"Chairman [pause] .. I am the Chairman , [long pause]", .. had he gone Mugabe? Was he going to dispense with the nominator, seconder formality.. he probably would have got away with it.

It was a momentary lapse...the Zanu-PF threat receded and we were off again.

Awards, the names of Mary Healy (GEN), Brian Power (SET) and Andrew Cox (WATO), were gladly added to those that keep the orienteering train going.

And that was it.

Interspersed in the proceedings, schools orienteering, juniors, featured strong in the discussions, a sense prevailed that things were moving nicely and could be built on.
Add to that, significantly, for the first time in many years, a Development Officer was elected and the post-AGM talk was of the promise of a Secretary.

The Chairman can probably reckon that persistence is bringing returns. Sprint AGM may be here to stay.

Peter Kernan

IOC 2008 Bere Island

Cork Orienteers put yet another nail in the coffin of orienteering as "the forest sport" with an excellent three days of events on a treeless Bere Island at this year's Irish Championships in west Cork. Looking back at past Irish Championships, open areas or predominantly open areas have been used for Irish Championships since the mid 1980's and Bere Island was another good example. Moderately complex contour detail, few tracks, lots of crags and marshes and spectacular cliff scenery were some of the memorable features of the weekend.
In Saturday's classic distance race, Marcus Pinker (CorkO) retained his Irish M21 Elite title while Niamh O'Boyle regained her crown in W21 Elite. See the classic distance results here.
In a departure from the expected plan the organisers opted to stage the Relays on the second day, Sunday, ensuring a good turnout of teams. This, combined with the reduction and simplification of relay classes, made for more competition on the day. Dublin's Great Eastern Navigators took their first ever Open title with David Healy, Tero Mamia and Ondrej Pijak, with the closest finish of the day, relegating Cork O to second, 39 seconds adrift, and CNOC third. Cork O (Ailbhe Creedon, Faye Pinker and Fionne Austin) took the women's trophy with the Lithuanian Medeina team second 3ROC third. See the relay results here.
In Monday's Middle Distance race on the west end of the island, Ondrej Pijak won the Elite course with Marcus Pinker second and Nick Simonin (BOC) third. In the W21E race Niamh O'Boyle again took gold with Ailbhe Creedon (Cork) 2nd and Ruth Lynam (CNOC) third. See the middle distance results here.
The Irish Championships on an open mountain area in May can be risky from the perspective of the weather but, with the exception of some heavy showers on Saturday, the competitors escaped largely unscathed. The classic race used the centre part of the A3 map, the relay and the middle distance races used A4 maps to the east and west of the main competition area. The relay, in particular, had a spectacular start location, with views all over the island for those who chose to look. Brian Corbett's revised maps were printed on waterproof paper rather than using plastic bags, and the innovation worked very well.
Cork O pulled out all the stops to provide a very well organised event; the evenings featured technical sessions in Castletownbere, the IOA Annual General Meeting, and screenings of Finn van Gelderen's new movie on orienteering.

Runners routes for the classic event are on Routegadget here.

Incidentally, another memorable feature of the Irish Championships can be hearing the first cuckoo of the year: last year it was on the course, in Co. Fermanagh; this year it was at the site of the Kilmichael ambush in Co. Cork on the way home - thinking we were going to Béal na mBláth.

Julie Cleary wants your help for stroke victims

While many of you will know Julie Cleary as an Irish international orienteer, many of you may not know that just days after the 2006 Irish Championships at Carlingford, Julie suffered a brain haemorrhage and stroke.
Julie has been orienteering since she was a junior with Tipperary Orienteers, the club founded by her father, Frank Martindale. She was an Irish Junior Champion and went on to represent Ireland at World Championships and World Cups on several occasions, as well as being Secretary of IOA, and an IOF event advisor.
She is now looking for sponsorship for "Different Strokes", a charity which helps young stroke survivors in Britain and Ireland: she wants orienteers to sponsor her for each km she runs in orienteering races during May- June, up to a maximum of 50 km.
Julie logged some more runs at the Irish Champs at Bere Island, and you can get more details of her plans and how to sponsor her on-line here.

LVO runners excel at World Schools Champs

World Schools Orienteering Championships
Medals went to Sweden, Latvia, Poland, England, Scotland, Estonia, and Austria in Wednesday's long distance event at the ISF World Schools Orienteering Championships in Scotland.

But while Aine McCann, running with the Irish Schools Team, chalked up her second major win of the week over the rough going at Devilla Forest, she failed to take a medal. Ireland didn’t enter a team in the school section so while Aine was allowed to run in the select section she was not allowed to medal, so England's second place Charlotte Watson took the title.

Last Saturday, Aine, already the British Schools Champion, won the British Long Distance title at Forres. Now she has proved herself a talent to be watched in the future with her World Schools win at Kincardine. With a time of 30m50s she beat Charlotte Watson into second by 2m 2s while Ilsze Buza of Latvia finished third in 33m 20s. "I didn't expect to win," said the Lagan Valley club girl who is coached by her father Greg, "I didn't worry about it too much. Just went out and ran."

Brighton’s Jonny Crickmore, 2nd overall at M16 at the JK, but 8th at the British after a problem at the 15th control, gave England junior World Schools gold. The South Downs runner won the junior select title with a time of 30m59s for the 4.8km course, beating Austria's Tobias Habenicht into second by over a minute.

Finlay Langan became Scotland's first ever medal winner at the championships when he took junior bronze in the Schools section. The Mar club runner finished two and a half minutes down on the lead with his time of 32m26s. And now, with skateboard enthusiast Joab Matthews 4th and rugby player Sam Burgess 14th, Scotland is in the running for the team title when the short distance results are added after Friday's race.

"Finlay's an orienteer but the others are only occasional competitors," said the school squad parent official Fiona Wickes. "But they have all been training really hard with the Mar club coaches."

Latvia and Poland currently head the opposition in the team event.

RESULTS- Orienteering - ISF World Schools Championship Orienteering Long Distance - (Devilla Forest, Kincardine)

Select/Individual Section Senior Girls - 5.6km

1 J Olsson (Swe) 40:35, 2 L Martinsson (Swe) 45:19, 3 J Blomquist (Eng) 46:28

Junior Girls - 4.0km

1 A McCann (Ire) 30:50 (non-counter), 2 C Watson (Eng) 32:52, 3 I Buza (Latvia) 33:20

Senior Boys 6.5km

1 A Ridefeldt (Swe) 37:37, 2 K Kivikas (Est) 38:25, 3 K Jones (Eng) 38:28

Junior Boys - 4.8km

J Crickmore (Eng) 30:59, 2 T Habenicht (Aut) 32:08, 3 J Sars (Lat) 33:23

Schools Section Senior Girls - 5.5km

1 A Segersen (Sweden) 39m37s, B Gustavsson (Swe) 45:05, 3 V Ernstson (Swe) 45:34

Junior Girls- 4.0km

1 L Valdame (Latvia) 32:27, 2 L Pacher (Austria) 36:21, 3 G Jeskowiak (Pol) 41:41; 10 Clíona Galwey (Ire) 48.48; 29 Cornelia Galwey (Ire) 63.54; 55 Mary Deane (Ire) 87.02; 60 Claire Nagle (Ire) 99.30; 85 Ann Linehan (Ire) 115.13

Senior Boys - 6.3km

1 E Heinaro (Finland) 37:52, 2 R Kivleniens (Latvia) 38:31, 3 O Mikkola (Fin) 38:49

Junior Boys- 4.6km

1 P Piosik (Pol) 29:57, 2 I Klavins ( Lat) 30:11, 3 F Langan (Scot) 32:26; 8 Mark Stephens (Ire) 41.19; 22 Jack Millar (Ire) 62.10

Further results can be found here

World Schools Orienteering Championships-Friday results-Middle Distance Running for Scotland, the Aboyne Academy junior boys' squad won team silver at the ISF World Schools Championship Orienteering at Barr Wood near Stirling today (Friday).And there was a second individual bronze for Finlay Langlan, their first counter home in the middle distance event, while Joab Matthews and Sam Burgess finished 12th and 14th.

Latvia with a total time of 2h 40m 15s for their best three counters in Tuesday’s long and Thursday's middle distance events won team gold. Scotland won silver with 2h 44m 32s. And Poland who had gone into the second day of competition just 8 seconds behind the Scots finished third with 2h 46m06s. It was a first ever team medal for the Scots at the ISF Orienteering Championships. Langlan, who clocked 14m29s, claimed individual bronze, seven seconds behind Latvia's Ivars Klavins (14:09) and Portugal's Luis Silva (14:22).

Ireland's Clíona Galwey finished 7th in the D2 class, improving further on her 10th in the Long Distance race on Wednesday. A non-competitive Aine McCann finished 2nd in the 2.1 km D2 Select class with a time of 12.55.

Other Irish results: H2 Schools class 2.5 km Jack Millar 17.47; Mark Stephens 17.55 (both non competitive).

D2 Schools class 2.0 km: 7 Clíona Galwey 15.46, 34 Claire Nagle 21.30, 40 Ann Linehan 24.16, 50 Mary Deane 29.08, 57 Cornelia Galwey 33.10.

(Information from Bill Melville)

Leinster Championships 2008

It was certainly a fair mountain we had to climb from the start of Setanta Orienteers Leinster Championships at the Wicklow Gap. Fair Mountain was the location for the event, on a new Pat Healy map based on Stirling Surveys photogrammetry. In fact, everything was fair except the weather, though it could have been much worse. All hail the Leinster Champions and all hail described the weather at times too.
An exposed upland area to the west of Turlough Hill pumped storage power station, the bleak start and finish area gave no shelter to the runners, though conditions on the courses were not bad. Lots of rock faced the longer courses with a first leg leading diagonally upslope from the start, throwing the runners in the navigational deep end right from the off. This area was really the only part of any complexity and brought many to grief within sight of the start.
After this the courses stayed mostly on the boggy, gullied mountainside with the longest veering towards Conavalla: the area was more runnable and less heathery than neighbouring Glendasan where Setanta ran the Leinsters in 2004. (Have SET run more Leinster Championships than other clubs? Mullaghmeen and Djouce also spring to mind).

David Healy (GEN) had 2 minutes to spare over CNOC's Colm Hill in M21L with CNOC clubmate Seamus O'Boyle another minute down. Niamh O'Boyle (CNOC) took the W21L title just 41 seconds clear of QUBOC's Ciara Largey, with CorkO's Ailbe Creedon third.

The area is a good addition to Wicklow's maps but must be a difficult one to have planned easy courses on. Nearly all open mountain with some patches of young forest, areas like Fair Mountain are challenging and intimidating to orienteers who expect a gentle stroll in the forest with the kids, but it does show that it is a serious sport requiring stamina, fitness, strength and speed as well as map reading skills.

Fair Mountain and Sunday April13th's race at Carlingford Mountain, provided excellent open-mountain preparation for the Irish Championships at Bere Island on the May bank holiday weekend.

Leinster Championships results here
Courses and Route here on Routegadget

Leinster Spring Cup Final
Carlingford, the following Sunday, proved very challenging as usual. Trina Cleary's courses often use small, subtle control sites in areas with lots of larger features, so it wasn't going to be easy. There was serious climb on the longer courses which used the mountain to the full but visibility was good and underfoot conditions excellent so the fitter runners moved away from the pack. Start and finish were in the area used for the Irish Relays in 2006 and the shorter courses stayed on that side of the hill.
David Healy, Declan McGrellis and Seamus O'Boyle took top spots on the Brown courses with Colm Hill dropped to 5th following a problem en route to the first control. Colm Rothery continued his return to form in advance of the Irish Championships, finishing 4th. This was the final event of the Leinster Spring Cup. League results are here.
Carlingford routes are here (very interesting!)

In the Spring Cup (best 4 of 6 races) Gerard Butler (3ROC) held off the challenge of David Healy to win the series by a mere 3 points, Butler with a race in hand dropped his Carlingford result while Healy had only run four races. Another close finish was on the Orange course with CNOC's Caoimhe O'Boyle holding off Donal Kearns (Fingal) to win by 8 points.

Royal County Runs
Fingal are running three events (the Tara Sprint series) to promote orienteering in Meath. Starting on April 19th at Dalgan Park, between Dunshaughlin and Navan, the events continue at Tara (May 10th) and Balrath Wood (off Dublin to Slane road) on May 25th. While aimed mainly at beginners, current orienteers are welcome too.

Peak Season

Irish Winners at JK2008; Switzerland's Daniel Hubmann cleans up

Three first places and a winning Relay team were the highest placed Irish competitors at the Jan Kjellstrom O-Festival in England over Easter.

Amid snow, gales and mud, 3000 competitors from many countries took part in this four day festival which started with a sprint race at the University of Surrey at Guildford. The two day individual event followed at Leith Hill (scene of JK71, 77 and 99) and Ashdown Forest (of Winnie the Pooh fame), and a relay at Eridge Old Park.
These are some of the best areas in southeast England for such events: certainly Leith Hill is beautiful runnable forest with a variety of detail. Ashdown is more straightforward with tussock, marshy open areas and easier navigation but more physical, while Eridge Park was good for a relay but very muddy at this time of year.

The sprint race was on a sloping university campus with many buildings, courses of less than 3 km and winning times of 15 minutes or so with lots of controls: something we could easily emulate here. Best Irish performances were Laurence Quinn (GEN), 4th M14 and Maritta Kymalainen (SET) 4th W45. Daniel Hubmann won the Elite race by 11 seconds (2.7 km in 14.01) and Sarah Rollins won the W21 race by 6 seconds (2.4 km in 15.58).

The 2-day individual event started at Leith Hill, near Guildford. High winds and wintry showers meant a run on the gloves and hats at the orienteering shops, but once you were running the conditions were reasonable most of the time. The area had plenty of paths and plenty of runnable forest, with areas of pits and detailed contour features. The elite courses had a short race today, with the classic distance at Ashdown to follow on Sunday.

Ashdown Forest was close to the army camp where 600 competitors stayed, including many of the Irish. Again, conditions were tough, with wind and heavy showers. Several valleys cutting into the area made for more climb than on the first day but the navigation was easier.

Best Irish results in the individual (combined days 2 & 3) were Ivan Millar (LVO) 1st M35S, James Logue (NWOC) 1st M40L, Noel Bogle (NWOC) 1st M70S, Angus Fyffe (FERMO) 2nd M14b, Julie Cleary (3ROC) 2nd W40S, Jack Millar (LVO) 2nd M10A. There was hot competition in other classes too, with Colm Rothery (AJAX) 6th in M45L running against Colm O'Halloran and Aonghus O'Cléirigh, for example.

The Elite classes were won by Daniel Hubmann (Switzerland) and Elise Egseth (Norway).

The Relays (for the JK Trophy) at Eridge Park were in a deerpark: runnable open surrounded by mixed forests with a high fence to separate the two. The weather again played its part: heavy snow showers to numb the waiting runners and cover the tracks in the forest. Very muddy underfoot with marshes and streams, but detailed enough and with some route choice, not a bad area. One of the Irish Junior Squad teams (Alex Simonin, Alan Lane and Padraig Mulry) won the Open Ad Hoc class by almost 4 minutes, with other Irish teams mostly based on the Junior Squad in 4th, 5th and 6th position. some of the last leg runners couldn't start because of travel arrangements.

Kristiansand OK (Norway) - featuring Daniel Hubmann again - won the JK Trophy, with a second Kristiansand club team 2nd and Edinburgh University 3rd. The Women's race was won by Elite Norwegian club Wing OK (with Elise Egseth), South Yorkshire 2nd and SHUOC 3rd.

JK 2009 will be in Northumbria: a sprint race in the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne; individual events are Kyloe and Detchant (as in JK 85) and a relay at Dipton. At least Easter is later next year ... and maybe next year there will be less confusion about what the various days are called. The Sprint race was called "Day 1", the first individual "Day 2" and the second individual "Day 3".

See full JK results here. See JK maps and routes here.

An Irish Junior Squad tour led took in the JK before a party headed for a few days training in Sweden and the 3-day Spring Cup at Hillerod in Denmark: the first major competition in Scandinavia after the snow melts. See details of the Spring Cup here. The event consists of a night event, classic and relay.
Update: Two Irish teams got top-10 places in the Relay. Colm Hill, Aine McCann and Alan Lane finished 4th and Rúairí Short, Conor Short and Kevin O'Boyle 6th.
Read more about the Spring Cup on the Ultimate Orienteering web site here.

Peak Season at home
We're coming to the time of the Irish Championships: entry closes on March 31st so be sure you have entered. Before that we have the Leinster Championships at Fair Mountain in Wicklow. Setanta Orienteers are organising the competition and you can see details here.
Don't forget the Irish 3-Day on Inishbofin on the June Bank Holiday weekend.




Any Old Maps?
Trinity College Map Library is trying to build up an archive of orienteering maps, showing the development of the sport and the changes which have occurred in orienteering areas through the years. Did you know, for example, that the first Irish 2-colour map was of Ballynahinch, Co. Galway, in 1970?
Brian Hollinshead is coordinating the collection of maps. If you can even loan Brian a map he can scan it and give you back the original: better still if you can donate a clean copy to the library.
See what maps are still missing here.

New arrival
UK-based Irish international Toni O'Donovan (CorkO) had a baby daughter in March.