Dracul-O

Marcus Geoghegan was one of a party of Irish orienteers who dared to go to Transylvania during the summer for a 3-Day ...

This is going to be easy. If I run as fast as I can and concentrate on the navigation then I should be able to make up for yesterday’s mistake and get into the chasing start on day three. After all, confusing a five metre deep erosion gulley for a small track is an easy mistake to make (it could happen to anyone), losing me seven minutes on a course that should have taken only thirty-five.

But today is going to be different. Except for the heat. Oh yes, the heat; thirty-three degrees and more. The incredibly steep climb to the start has left me soaked to the skin and dehydrated before I’ve even picked up my map. Our Transylvania 3-day event info recommends gaiters and full body cover, but yesterday’s forest was as close to orienteering perfection as you can get with open runnable forest, lots of contour detail, fast but tricky, so who’s going to bother with full body cover?

First control is a doddle, or at least it should be. All I have to do is run over to the *side* of that big hill, go around the little marshy bit and there I’ll find the control. So why do I run towards the *top* of the hill, ignoring that patch of wet-looking green vegetation lower down to my right? OK, put that stupidity behind you and concentrate on the second control. There’s a big patch of rough open to be crossed before re-entering the lovely white forest. Take it steady and use those tank tracks to guide you across the open area. We are in a part of the Romanian Apuseni mountains called the Poligon whose rusting mock trains and tanks betray the area’s previous incarnation as a soviet-era military training ground.

Back into the lovely white forest again. Next couple of controls are no problem. Fill up at the water station and then out again into the heat across some more rough open ground. Am beginning to realise why full-body cover was recommended - two inch hawthorn spikes can puncture an artery and, as Pat can testify, they’re not very pleasant when embedded in the top of your skull. Use small marsh as attack point for number five, all is going smoothly. Number six is a re-entrant about 150 metres from five. Navigate carefully. Blow it. Lost. Try to relocate off another marshy bit, control must be just over there. No, it isn’t. What’s that sound? Find a herd of goats in a nice shady copse avoiding the midday sun with the goat-herd enjoying some Euro-Techno on the radio. Beginning to get a blister but it’s only a small one, maybe the size of a 10 cent coin.

The best strategy now is to wander aimlessly for a few minutes, fooling myself into thinking that I know where I am. Find the techno-goats for the second time, desperately wondering which of the hundreds of blobs of green on the map is their nice shady copse. Beginning to get delirious in the sun, even with my indispensible French Foreign Legion hat and all of the water that I downed a few minutes ago.

Well, it’s only 150 metres back to the previous control so why not do the right thing and start the leg again? Cut your losses. Get half-way back to previous control, fool myself into thinking that I recognise where I am, repeat all of the mistakes that I made the first time and find the techno-goats yet again. Is that still the same tune? It all sounds the same to me. Repeat the “wander aimlessly” strategy but for some strange reason it still proves unsuccessful and includes a fourth visit to the techno-goats. Make “go back to previous control” decision again and get completely lost. “Oh for heaven’s sake!” (not exact words used), the two controls are only 150 metres apart!

Eventually find little marsh used as attack point for control five. Walk to number six. WALK, I said. DO NOT RUN. Anyway, running is becoming unpleasant as blister is now the size of a 20 cent coin.

Find number six at last. Funnily enough it’s in the exact place that it would have been in if I’d looked in the right place the first time around. That leg took me seventeen minutes, Dave did it in two. OK, put it behind you and start jogging to number seven. What’s that sound? So that’s where the techno-goats are, only a few ****ing metres from control six! I suspect that I’m now a worse navigator than Dizzy, our spatially disoriented car Satnav, who couldn’t find our hotel’s street and had to be saved from vehicular defenestration on a number of occasions.

Next few controls are OK, including something that is a first for me – orienteering through stables, the horses utterly indifferent to the sight of people running past their nice piles of lunch-hay.

Still a few more controls to get in the rough open, but soon will be back into that lovely white forest, with its grand-canyon gullies and clutter-free forest floor. Blister has now stabilised at €2, but dehydrated delirium prevents me from feeling the pain. Wonder if there are any bears in this forest? – we actually saw a European brown bear with her cub while we were driving over the Transylvanian Alps a couple of days ago; a real privilege.

Reach the finish after an epic 131 minutes, just in time to give a short Irish lesson to a Romanian orienteer who is doing a master’s degree in Irish Studies – it’s a small world. Brendan now knows why full-body cover was recommended; his choice of sleeveless t-shirt has left him looking like one of those self-flagellating monks from the DaVinci Code.

In the end “OK Paddy” wins three podium places with Mary O’Connell, Dave Weston and Hazel Thompson taking home some silverware (actually the prizes are vodka glasses). Deirdre O’Neill, Pat Ryan, Brendan O’Connor and I take home great memories of some complex, challenging and perfectly mapped orienteering terrain that is as good as it gets anywhere in the world.

Marcus Geoghegan

OK Paddy

Wales pip Ireland at JHI

In a closely contested weekend of orienteering, the Welsh team increased their overnight lead of 3 points to finish 8 points clear of Ireland at the Ward Junior Home International last weekend. The competition was staged over two days on the complex forested sand dunes of Newborough on the island of Anglesey in Wales.
This competition, for M and W 14, 16 and 18 classes, gives juniors a taste of top class international competition, and the team dealt with the pressure very well, under the expert eye of managers Greg McCann and Ruth Lynam.
Unusually for a sand dune area, the forest features a rocky ridge with plenty of crags and lots of steep hills. Access restrictions are easing somewhat, so that this superb area (used for the 2001 British Championships) may host some more events - and it's only about 40 minutes from Holyhead!
Following podium positions for Cork's Niamh Corbett and LVO's Áine McCann, the Irish girls beat their Welsh counterparts in the individual race on Saturday for the first time. On Sunday, the Irish girls again finished ahead of the Welsh, but the Welsh boys picked up substantially more points than the Irish, spearheaded by Kristian Jones, who won the M18 class by more than 3 minutes.
After the first day the score stood with Scotland and England tied with 72 points apiece, Wales with 37 and Ireland with 34, so there was keen interest in the following day's Relays. England's strength in depth showed here, though, and the Sassanachs drew further away from the Scots to finish with 130 to Scotland's 112 points.
As usual, the main competition was between Ireland and Wales: despite the Irish girls scoring 14 to Wales' 6, the Welsh boys picked up 20 points to Ireland's 6, leaving the score at Wales 63, Ireland 54, so Wales again took the coveted Judith Wingham Trophy.
Niamh Corbett's 2nd place in W14 gave her the award for the best Irish performance.
The Irish team was: M14 Shane Hoare, Harry Millar, Jonathan Quinn; W14 Niamh Corbett, Clíona McCullough, Caoimhe O'Boyle, Jill Stephens; M16 Cillín Corbett, Eoin McCullough, Jack Millar, Mark Stephens; W16 Áine McCann, Deirdre Ryan, Andrea Stefkova; M18 Padraig Mulry, Kevin O'Boyle, Conor Short; W18 Laura Cox.
Jill, Caoimhe, Shane and Jonathan were being capped for the first time: a special mention to Jill and Caoimhe, who acquitted themselves very well, both running up a class.
Results are available on the Eryri Orienteers web site here. ("Eryri" is the Welsh word for what we call Snowdonia).
Next year's event is at Perth in Scotland, probably on September 13/14th 2010.

Still on the topic of Juniors, Northern Ireland hosts the Junior Inter-Regional Championships this weekend: more than 250 M and W14, 16 and 18's will converge on Slievenagore in the Mournes and on Belvoir Forest in Belfast for an Individual and Relay O-Fest for the eleven or so British O-Federation regions. This is the first time the event has been held outside England, Scotland and Wales, and will provide the competitors with a new orienteering challenge and the organisers with some practice in event logistics in advance of the Jan Kjellstrom events in the North at Easter 2011.

Ernie Lawrence
You may have seen the e-mail from Lindie Naughton informing us of the recent death of Ernie Lawrence. Ernie had been a teacher at Wilson's Hospital school at Multyfarnham, Co.Westmeath where he was involved in canoeing, orienteering and adventure sports generally. He was very involved in the Leinster Schools' Orienteering Association and was the man behine WHO (Wilson's Hospital Orienteers) which featured notable orienteers like the Foley-Fisher family and Shane Lynch. May he reast in peace.

Summer Summary

Since the last instalment, we've had lots of high quality orienteering and some excellent results. Over the summer Irish teams have run at the European Youth Championships in Serbia, the Junior World Championships in Italy, and the World Championships (& Trail-O Championships) in Hungary. We've also had runners in the big summer races like the Swedish 5-Day and the Scottish 6-Day. At home we had the Setanta Rogaine and the Shamrock O-Ringen.
The autumn kicks off at home with some great events like the Northern Ireland Championships on the Cavan/Fermanagh border (details here), and lots of local events such as Fingal's scatter series. The NIOA are hosting both the Senior Home International (at the NI Champs at the beginning of October) and the BOF Inter-regional competition for more than 200 juniors from all the British O-Federation regions on September 12-13. For fans of mountain marathons, the Mournes MM is on September 19-20th: details here.

Highlights of the summer must include Ruth Lynam's performance at the Scottish 6-Day, winning 6 days on the trot in a very competitive W55 class. Other podium places in Scotland went to Aine McCann (3rd W16A), Niamh Corbett (3rd W14A), Ruth's son Ruairí Short (3rd M20L), Nuala Callery (2nd W35S), and James Logue (1st M40L). Full results, routes etc can be found here.

I hope to have reports on several of these races soon ... I know that the WOC reports are in preparation. A report on the washed-out Swiss O-Week would be interesting too ...

Results and information on these events can be found using the following links, and there is more to see on the Junior Team blog here and Senior Team blog here.
EYOC (Serbia)
JWOC (Italy)
WOC (Hungary)
Swiss O-Week.

Jukola Relay 2009 Report

Colm Hill reports on his teams great result in the Jukola Relay at Mikkeli in Finland earlier this month ...

On June 13-14th a number of Leinster orienteers took part in the Jukola relay at Mikelli in eastern Finland. The Jukola Relay is a seven-person relay event that starts at 23:00. The relay kicks off with an artillery cannon. Upon the explosion, the hoards of runners numbering 1500 pour out of the stadium to the cheering of the gathered crowd. The first 3 legs are usually held in darkness but by 3 am the sun has risen above the Finnish forests. The next two legs are shorter with the final two legs gaining length. The last leg is usually the longest and most challenging – its purpose is to split up the anchor legs of the strongest teams battling for the win, or - as the case may be - battling it out with a small rival club to jump into the top 300 finishers.

David Healy (GEN) ran the first leg for the ad hoc team of Ticknocturnals (TNT) IOC. With the start number of 573 he was somewhere among the middle of bodies running out along the horse track. On the big screen in the middle of the assembly, the first leg was shown, well, part of it. It’s kinda difficult to fit a 4.1km leg onto a screen regardless of size. We were hoping that Dave would maintain his 573^rd position. After 16:35 min. Finnish club Kalevan Rasti were the first team to reach the first control. Soon the 15 ft screen was full of runners swamping around the control. At the base of the screen the names of teams began to pop up and scroll off as more and more teams registered. 191^st TNT +2.31mins. Dave managed to gain 382 places by the first control. A faint cheer could be heard amongst the massing crowd. That was a job done as far as we were concerned. Time for more important things for the rest of the team,while Niall Ewen (CNOC) began to warm up: mainly food and sleep.

David comes in, Niall goes out. I didn’t notice it. I was away in my own world getting wired for the test that was about to come upon me. Meanwhile out in the forest Niall was beasting around the 2^nd leg. The darkest part of the night. Totalling 12.7km- if you’re running in straight lines. He lost his way once or twice in the thick forest but finished strongly. At the map exchange I didn’t see him coming. I heard him. Screaming out my name as if his life depended on it. I yelled at him. He flung himself at the barrier and we yelled at each other for what seemed like 5 mins. Have a good run? F*** YEAH. CNOC the sh*t out of ‘em. “CNOC…” as I ran away from the barrier as high as a kite “…Not Sh*t!” were the last words I heard. He might have said it or it might have been my own voice in my own head. Who knows?

I had the third leg, which is known as the “Long Night”. As the Jukola event was held further north than usual the sun rose mid way through the leg so it wasn’t as tough as other years. I was pushing the pace as much as I could but made 3 costly errors. I forced myself to keep running hard. I had a few close calls. Coming up to the end. About 2 km to go. Nothing mattered anymore. Conor Short was less than 2 km away. The 3^rd last leg. Green marsh with a river in the middle or track around? There was only one option. Battling through the green I knew I had made a good call. Then I saw the river, or swamp or orienteers grave. On the far bank I could see foot prints and fingers marks clawed into the bank… oh no! I backed up and ran at the river. I jumped. Flying through the air. I made it. Well, my left foot did. My right foot ended up in as far as my hip. I struggled out. As I ran in the 4^th leg runner for Halden SK was running in. 5 mins clear of 2^nd place. I had left Conor with a lot of work to do. I pushed the pace along the run in, wanting to catch as many runners as possible. That run in just kept on going. Finally reaching the map stands I began to yell at Conor, not sure if he was even there. When I finally looked up, it turned out that a space had formed around Conor. Perfect. I attempted to open his map for him but failed. It didn’t appear to bother him as he grabbed it and legged it out into the forest. The next hour is a bit hazy. I think I spoke to Niall and congratulated him on his run. Headed to the showers. More coffee. Woke up Niamh O’Boyle and Colm Moran.

Away from the assembly area Conor was battling it out in the forest. As he ran he was picking up places left right and centre. He had gained 7 places in the bag by the 2^nd control. By control 9 he had gained 10 places. As he left the main gaffle on his course he had dropped back places but hung on all the way home to gain another 2 places for TNT.

Friday morning, the day before the race, we had been laughing and joking about where we’d finish and what was the best case scenario. After last year when Seamus O’Boyle, Ruairi Short and I managed to bring the Defence Forces team into 304^th we assumed that if we finished in the top 400, it would be a good result. After pondering about our estimated times we figure we might just miss the mini (massive!) mass start at the end.

As Conor hammered the run in, he found Niamh and she set off. We knew she’d be consistent, this never came into question - our worry was could she match the pace of her male counterparts in technical terrain. Or perhaps that last bit should be revised. Could she get through the manky terrain as fast as the taller Finnish runners. Luckily for us, the slow going terrain suited us better as we are not blessed with beautiful 4 min/km runnable forest. Niamh bounced around the forest. During the middle of the course she dropped a few places but then looking at the splits she must have been splashed or something as she begins to pick up places in the 2^nd half of the course. For those that don’t know, she’s not the best morning person. So being woken up at 5am and being told you have 10km to do was never going to go down well no matter how we phrased it!

Niamh came in and unleashed Colm Moran (3ROC). He set out on the longest course he has run to date. As he began to battle it out in the forest, porridge and coffee called for the rest of the team. After the food was scoffed the anxious wait for Colm continued. Time passed and he registered at the last radio control. Seeing a red o- top on the run in and Colm beasting it in, Niall and myself legged it outside and began to scream hell’s abuse down the run in at him. As Colm got closer, we realised it wasn’t Colm but some other random club. These things happen! Colm eventually descended upon the run in. He was really suffering. You can see it in his stride. His run -or stagger- brings back memories of being on the receiving end of 2 hour suffer runs up in the Dublin mountains during the winter. We do the only thing we can for him…. Yell louder!

Colm in and Kieran Rocks (LVO) out. Or what it looked like to us was that Colm was out for the count. He walked out of the download. A big smile on his face. He claims he was fine but the blank “I’m about to pass out” look in his eyes only sent Niall and me into a fit of laughter. With everyone done and dusted it was down to Kieran to bring us glory. Daniel Hubmann came in to take the title, so I was slightly disappointed we didn’t win it. He was followed by Thierry Gueorgiou. And eventually Emil Wingsted. We were knocked out of the top 3. Damn! Next year will be different. The run in became a ground for the tired last leg runners to battle it out for club glory. Every place hotly contested. Not one orienteering wanting to give an inch.

Time passed and no sign of Kieran. After a respectable 2:19:31min he crossed the line. He later recounts his run as being one of those where what can go wrong, doesn’t just go wrong. It goes wrong and gets worse! From losing a contact lens to dropping the power gel. Navigating in Finland is tough – attempting the nav with one eye is something I wouldn’t be very fond of!

Mikelli Jukola over and done with. 321^st. 11 hours, 13mins and 5 seconds. Not too shabby but still 3 hours 10 down on the elites.

CNOC’s Ruairi Short was also running at the Jukola event, he was running for his Swedish club, OK Tullinge. He ran the last leg and his team finished in 190^th position.

The question is – Will any Irish club try beat 321^st ? Setanta have tried, DFO have tried…. Who will be next? CorkO, LVO, CNOC, Ajax, GEN?

2010 will be an interesting year.

Visit the 2009 Mikelli-Jukola web site here.

The 2010 event will be at Kytäjä on June 19^th. The event is about 50 km from Helsinki and 120 km from Tampere (Ryanair).See the web site here.

The pictures show the winning Kristiansand team, the 1500 or so maps waiting on lines for the mass start, Niamh O'Boyle on the run-in, sections of the Jukola maps and the crowds enjoying the sunshine. (Thanks to Kieran Rocks and the Jukola web site for the photos).

Irish Team at Nordic Championships

Follow the fortunes of the Irish team at the Nordic Championships and World Cup races in Finland here. There is up to the minute news of the team and photos, map sections and links.

See David Healy, Niamh O'Boyle, Ruairi Short, Neil Dobbs, Rosalind Hussey and Colm Hill in their snazzy new Trimtex gear! Don't miss it!
See live tracking of runners here.

May News

IOC 2009
A challenging weekend of orienteering faced the competitors at this year's Irish Championships in Co. Donegal on the May Bank Holiday weekend. Joint organisers Western eagles and CNOC produced maps of three overlapping areas beside Lough Eske, near Donegal Town. Described in advance as being like Inishbofin but with more hills, the runners knew what kind of thing was in store, but the reality was somewhat different. Perhaps it was the recent weather, but the areas were very wet, slippy and tussocky underfoot, slowing the runners and increasing the physical challenge.
The Saturday evening middle distance race at Benson's Hill, planned by Pat Healy, saw Marcus Pinker (CorkO) winning the Elite course by two minutes from Bishopstown's Nick Simonin, with Cork O's Darren Burke third, while Niamh O'Boyle (CNOC) had almost a minute to spare over second placed Ciara Largey (Fermanagh) in the Women's Elite, followed by DFO's Maeve O'Grady. Marcus, of course, grew up on terrain like this in west Cork, and eats this kind of stuff for breakfast. (However, see below!). See all the middle distance results here.
Sunday's Classic race, planned by Frank Ryan, at Tawnawully shared the start and finish with the previous evening's race but the courses largely diverged from the middle distance courses. Heavy showers made the going tougher but Marcus Pinker again came to the fore, finishing eleven minutes clear of upcoming Colm Hill (CNOC) with Waterford's Neil Dobbs third; in the Women's Elite, Ciara Largey turned the tables on Niamh O'Boyle with a margin of 3 minutes, followed again by Maeve O'Grady. Táiniste Mary Coughlan came to present the prizes. See the results here.
Overnight rain and mist made the 2.5 km walk to the relay changeover area something of an epic: the location on the hilltop at Croaghmeenare chosen by planner Paraic Higgins must be picturesque, but on the day that was in it there was little to be seen and the runners retreated to the warmth and food at the Tawnawully community centre rather than wait in the gale in the very welcome army tent. Cork O took the Premier class (Darren Burke, Shane Lynch, Marcus Pinker) with 6 minutes to spare over CNOC (Ruairí Short, Shea O'Boyle, Colm Hill) with Ajax (Niall Ewen, Aonghus OCléirigh, Colm Rothery) third. In the Women's race only two teams finished, with CNOC (Bridget Lawlor, Maeve, Ruth) ahead of Lagan Valley (Andrea Stefkova, Susan Bell, Katarina Stefkova). There were many non-finishers and incomplete teams. See the relay results here.
The weekend also featured the IOA Annual General Meeting, a table quiz to raise money for the Junior Squad and sessions with the Elite winners routes. Among other nuggets of information were the dietary habits of the winners: cereal, toast and yoghurt seem to feature in the pre-race preparation of both Marcus and Ciara.
It's always a risk running orienteering in open upland areas, particularly in our climate, and we got away with perhaps two days out of three. Overall the weekend was a very challenging one both for the competitors and the organisers. That a small group of volunteers living several hours away from a remote mountain area like this can map, plan and organise three days of orienteering at Championship level is a remarkable feat and a testament once again to the dedication of the people involved.
Some routes can be seen on Routegadget here.
Next year's Irish Championships will be in Northern Ireland, in a break from the usual sequence in order to accommodate the Jan Kjellstrom Orienteering Festival to be run by NIOA in 2011. Visit the JK2011 web site here.

IOA Chairman Crisis Averted
A crisis arose at the IOA Annual General Meeting in Co. Donegal on May 3rd when no Chairman could be found for the Association. Outgoing Chairman, Marcus Geoghegan, was obliged to stand down after three years in the job and the meeting adjourned without finding a replacement.
Since then, Brendan O'Brien has stepped forward to take on the role. Brendan, now of Kerry Orienteers, has been Director of High Performance on the IOA for the past seven years and stood down from the Executive Committee at the AGM. His holiday from IOA was short-lived, however.
The Chairman is an essential position, particularly when it comes to dealing with Government departments or official bodies like the Sports Council.
Berndan is the moving force behind the inaugural Irish Sprint-O Championships to be held at Ross Island, Killarney, on the eve of the Shamrock O-Ringen, on Friday May 29th. See details here.

IOC2009 Medals Table

Marcus Geoghegan writes "I was chatting to someone at the Irish Orienteering Championships prizegiving in Tawnawully who bemoaned the lack of medals that his club was receiving, so I simply couldn't resist putting the results into a spreadsheet to create an IOC2009 medals table.

A quick web search told me that the normal Olympic system ranks by number of golds, then silvers, then bronzes.

Using this rank-by-gold system CorkO ties with Lagan Valley, but loses out because Lagan Valley has a lot more silvers, so strength in depth won it for them. In fact in each category (gold, silver and bronze) Lagan Valley won the most medals.

Curragh-Naas are third, but if any one of Curragh-Naas's eight silvers had been a gold they would have moved up to second place overall, so a few seconds in any of several classes made all the difference. A number of competitors were entered as CNOC/DFO or DFO/CNOC; in each case I deleted the second club and assumed that the competitor represented the first - “count me twice” is definitely not allowed. I'm sure Curragh-Naas could scramble further up the table by redeploying their schizophrenic members (at the expense of the defence forces), but he is just going by the club names in the published results.

There are two other possible systems: one ranks by total number of medals won and the other assigns points to medals. Both have problems – rank-by-medals means a gold has the same value as a bronze, and rank-by-points means N bronzes are equal to one gold, both of which go against the spirit of a championship event. You go there to win, not to nearly win, and I say that with genuine respect for all of those proud orienteering chests that are displaying an IOC2009 silver or bronze medal this week. However it has to be said that the rank-by-gold system used here does have a theoretical anomaly: what if club A wins only one gold and club B wins ten silvers but no golds; which club is better?

Whichever way you choose to look at it, Lagan Valley dominated the 2009 Irish Orienteering Championships. They took home about one of every five medals awarded, as well as one of every five golds. Only one third of their fifteen silvers was lost to clubmates, so they had great potential to win a lot more golds.

It is interesting that the top-three clubs won 55% of the golds and 45% of all medals; I think this means that big clubs win disproportionately more medals, possibly because they find it easier to fill relay teams.

Great Eastern Navigators are our best alchemists – they converted 62% of their 16 medals into gold, but Setanta seems to have lost the Midas touch with a conversion rate of only 8% from their 13 medals. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride...

The press didn't pick up on it, but Leinster actually beat Munster twice last weekend, once in Rugby and again in Orienteering. The inter-provincial gold share-out is: Leinster 41; Munster: 20; Northern Ireland 17; Connaught 1. However each of the top-three clubs in the medals table is from a different province which must mean that there is great potential to revive some sort of inter-provincial or all-Island inter-club competition. In total 20 different clubs brought home some silverware.

Medals from middle distance, classic distance and relay are all included and I have counted a relay team as one medal, not three - that’s the normal Olympic way of doing it. This table is based on medals, not places, as the eligibility rules preclude some class winners from receiving IOC medals. I'm sure that my spreadsheet and analysis is full of errors and apologies in advance for that.

Maybe we should have an IOC medals table each year? I can’t recall if this has ever been done before, but I certainly haven’t seen one in recent years. In an Irish Orienteering Championships we probably give out more medals than at an average Olympic games, so we must have enough data to build year-on-year comparisons. The data is up there on the web for the last few years so if anyone wants my spreadsheet (it's a pivot table) they are welcome to try and time-line the data across a few years.

Well done Lagan Valley.

(The actual medals table wouldn't import into the blog but it will be on the IOA web site soon - Ed.)

Summer Series Events Start

If you have some free evenings, why not do some midweek orienteering? There are several series of evening events on in the early summer: CNOC have a series of five events on Tuesdays in Kildare and Wicklow, finishing in Hollywood, Co. Wicklow with a barbecue on June 16th; Cork O have an Inter Firm League of 13 events on Tuesdays finishing on 28th July; Bishopstown have a Business Houses league on Thursdays with the last event on 28th May. Lagan Valley also have a series of Thursday evening events, finishing on May 28th. Details of venues and times on the IOA web site here.

Shamrock Entries Close
Entries for the 10th Shamrock O-Ringen have just closed. The event, based in Killarney over the June bank-holiday weekend, bring us back to three areas: the Black Lakes, Crohane Mountain and Muckross, giving a variety of terrains from craggy, boggy open mountain to fast forest and parkland. Once again, entries from abroad are good but Irish entries look a bit disappointing, a feature of the event I have commented on since its earliest days. Information on the Shamrock O-Ringen is here.

Tell us about it
If you're going orienteering over the summer, do write about it for The Irish Orienteer!

Tomorrow's News Today

Chairman’s Report to the 2009 Irish Orienteering Association Annual General Meeting, Tawnawully, Co. Donegal, May 3rd, 2009

Sometimes in Orienteering we do ourselves a disservice by talking about declining numbers, ageing profiles, land-access issues and difficulties in attracting young people to the sport. These are all real issues, but we need to temper this by also thinking of the many positive things that are happening in Irish Orienteering today. The calendar is so full that it is hard to find a free date; junior training sessions are overflowing; hundreds of young people are taking part in Schools orienteering; more than 40 mapping projects are underway; outdoor education centres want to do Orienteering training; the junior squad are producing excellent performances against world's best; over 80 orienteers have attended various Orienteering courses and seminars this year; and more people are actively involved in the administration and development of the sport, both on and off the IOA committee, than have been for many years.

For me the highlight of this year, the 40th anniversary of Orienteering in Ireland, is the fantastic work being done with the Junior Orienteering Squad. Please join me in thanking all of the people who work with the juniors – without you we would not have such a successful and vibrant group of enthusiastic youngsters. I strongly encourage every Irish Orienteer to help our junior squad whenever you find an opportunity, and congratulations to the squad members themselves on their excellent achievements in competition during 2008/2009.

Irish Orienteering is very grateful to the Irish Sports Council for the financial support that we receive from lottery funds. It is often a perception within orienteering that this is a pot of money that can be used in whatever way we like, but this is not true. Sports Council funding is ring-fenced such that it must be spent in specific areas, by far the largest of which is coaching. Ed Niland has developed an excellent coaching structure for Irish Orienteering; implementing this structure is not a one-man job - it is now up to all of us as individuals and clubs to make sure that it is a success.

Military Orienteering continues to thrive and I would like to welcome Captain Oliver Clear who is replacing Commandant Pat Farrelly as the Defence Forces' Orienteering official representative. I would also like to thank Pat for arranging a number of places for Irish Orienteers on British Army Orienteering Club training courses.

Irish Orienteering is very grateful to Martin Flynn for his ongoing work on orienteering.ie and for the continuing development of the event management software, Orienteering Ór. Stuart Scott's IOLeague has become the standard automated management system for a number of leagues including Munster, Leinster and Dublin-by-Night. John McCullough's "The Irish Orienteer" blogsite has been a great success with lots of interesting and informative articles. However it cannot survive without articles from orienteers and everyone is encouraged to contribute in some way during the coming year.

While the numbers attending schools events are very encouraging, at last year's AGM I highlighted weaknesses in our Schools' Orienteering structures and I am delighted that Andrew Cox with assistance from others has made great progress in this important area.

The “Computers in Orienteering” seminar in December 2008 was a great success and needs to be repeated in 2009; see https://theirishorienteer.blogspot.com for a full report. A controller’s course, two OCAD courses and a coaching course have been run this year.

We are grateful to Fachtna Healy (CorkO) and Brian Power (Setanta) for their efficient management of the shared SportIdent kits. Electronic timing is now the norm at nearly every Orienteering event and this has put a lot of pressure on these shared kits - we need to create a plan for how this can be restructured to streamline the process for the 2009/2010 season. A number of clubs are building their own club kits and one club has purchased an entire kit with the aid of a 2008 Sports Capital Grant from the Department of Sports.

In February 2009 the FIOA (Federation of Irish Orienteering Associations) was revived - the minutes of the meeting are available on orienteering.ie and the IOA looks forward to strengthening its relationship with the Northern Irish Orienteering Association (NIOA). In 2011 the largest orienteering event ever to be staged on this island, the JK, will be staged by the NIOA I am sure that they would be grateful for any help that an individual or club has to offer.

Since 2006 we have run social events in Inishbofin Island, Kilcrohane and Castletownbere and we are continuing this tradition at the 2009 AGM. As well as being informative these sessions are an attempt to increase the social aspects of our sport. CorkO are also running similar sessions during this year's 20th anniversary Shamrock O-Ringen in West-Cork/Kerry. Their entry list is full of high-class international orienteers and it is a great credit to CorkO that they have firmly established the Shamrock O-Ringen on the international calendar.

I would like to thank the many Orienteers who quietly make a huge contribution to the administration and development of the sport, both on and off the IOA Executive committee. A number of clubs have had no representative on the IOA committee for many years; maybe this will change this year? There is a misapprehension that committee membership involves travelling long distances to regular meetings, but this is not the case. A small number of conference call meetings are held each year and most decisions are taken by email exchanges. The minutes of all IOA meetings are published on orienteering.ie. In January 2008 the IOA appointed a part-time paid assistant, Aine Joyce of GEN, to help with the administrative work of the voluntary IOA committee, especially Juniors and Treasurer. This system is working extremely well and all of the IOA committee are delighted with Aine's pleasant, efficient and reliable manner; we would be lost without her majestic organisational talents.

After seven years of service, Brendan O'Brien of KerryO (previously Ajax) is stepping down as Director of High Performance Orienteering. Please join me in thanking Brendan for the excellent work that he has done over the years in managing and developing the Elite squad.

Harold White has re-established the technical sub-committee and the rules of orienteering are being updated.

A highlight of the year was the completion of Brian Hollinshead's (3ROC) project to arrange the donation of 1,060 maps to the Trinity College Map Library; see https://theirishorienteer.blogspot.com for a full report.

We are grateful to Bernard Creedon and Barbara Foley-Fisher who continue their work as the IOA's Medical Officer and Child Protection Officer. Clubs are reminded that it is their own responsibility to implement the IOA's Child Protection, Anti-Discrimination, Schools', Land Access and Anti-Doping policies, all of which are published on orienteering.ie. In addition Barbara is doing a lot of work on Garda vetting procedures and I encourage all clubs to help and support her with this vital process; you will be hearing more from her soon.

The IOA Development Officer has made great strides in the development of permanent Orienteering courses. Clubs are encouraged to develop close ties with local landowners, Coillte and the OPW. A confrontational attitude with landowners will not help our cause - an excellent example of how to work positively with Coillte and other semi-state agencies is the work that is being done by Philip Brennan of Setanta as the IOA’s representative to the Dublin Mountains Partnership, and by David Dare of Setanta who represents the IOA to the Irish Forest Certification Initiative. Leave No Trace is a very active in Ireland, but we have no representative to it.

I would like to remind Orienteers not to claim, either explicitly or implicitly, that they represent Irish Orienteering when they are dealing with any other organisation. You are free to make your representations as an individual or as a representative of your club, but if you want to lobby on behalf of Irish Orienteering please join the committee or ask to be nominated as an official representative by the committee.

LeeO have disbanded and donated €2,000 for new elite trophies and a junior trophy. Some work has been done in this area but unfortunately not in time for IOC 2009. In order to progress this, someone, or a small group, needs to step forward and make this happen. Our elite trophies are worn and ageing - they do not properly reflect the dedication, skill and training that it takes to become a champion.

In light of the legislative framework that governs sporting bodies, insurance requirements, and our child-protection responsibilities, the club affiliation and event registration procedures have been tightened and a constitutional amendment to incorporate Just Sport Ireland has been proposed to the 2009 AGM.

I would like to thank WEGO for 2009 Irish Championships and for facilitating the 2009 IOA AGM.

Next year I believe the whole Irish Orienteering community needs to focus on: involving more people in the development of the junior squad; regularising the position of schools' orienteering within the IOA; finding positive ways to work with Coillte and other landowning bodies; better meeting our child protection responsibilities; creating more inter-club rivalry; and enhancing the social, not just the competitive, aspect of our sport.

The IOA constitution does not permit the same person to spend more than three years as chairman, a wise provision as it gives others the opportunity to step forward and implement their ideas. I have completed three terms as chairman, double-jobbing as mapping officer, and I am now stepping down from both positions and from the committee. I would like to thank all of those that I have worked with on the committee over the last eight years for their enthusiasm, hard work and their endless patience when I bombard them with emails. It is a genuine pleasure to be a part of such an enthusiastic team.

Marcus Geoghegan, Outgoing IOA Chairman, May 3rd, 2009