New Year 2011

2011 Events Preview
Here we are at the start of possibly the biggest year ever in Irish Orienteering: as well as all the usual highlights, we have a week full of outstanding competitions in April and May with the Jan Kjellstrom and the Irish Championships back to back. Online entries are open for both competitions and cheap entries are still available - don't forget to enter!
As well as some great competitions at home (regional championships, Junior Home International, Shamrock O-Ringen), there's the World Championships in France, the Scottish 6-Day and many other big competitions. Here we preview some of the year's activities.
This feature is being added to day by day, so do drop in from time to time to see what else has been added!

Ireland

The 2010 Munster Championships are at Rossbeigh, Co. Kerry on 6th March (postponed from last Autumn), doubtless running the 2010 age classes. The Leinster Championships in April return to the Glencree area of Wicklow where GEN are hosting the event on the 3rd. Hot on the heels of the Leinsters we have the Jan Kellstrom O-Festival 2011 in Belfast and Co. Down. If you've never been to the JK, British Orienteering's premier event, now is your chance. Details here. No planes, no ferries, no hassle: the organisers are even laying on buses to the events for anyone who isn't travelling by car. Training, Sprint-O at Stranmillis in Belfast, classic distance races on the dunes of Tyrella and the slopes of Slieve Croob (scene of IOC'86), followed by relays again at Tyrella, plus Trail-O, then colour events during the week and training at Carlingford and Scarr on the way to Ajax's Irish Championships on the Dublin/Wicklow border. See here. What a week!
Then, on June 4-5-6 we have Cork Orienteers running another Shamrock O-Ringen on the wonderful Sheep's Head peninsula of West Cork, with Setanta's 24-hour Rogaine in Wicklow on June  25th. Shamrock entries close on May 6th but may be closed earlier if parking etc becomes a problem, so enter early!
After the summer, the Junior Home International is in Fermanagh in September, then the 2011 Munster Championships on October 30th and the Connacht Championships on November 27th - more details of these closer to the time. Two Munster Champs in one year - is this a record?

A great place to start your search is at the World of Orienteering website here. If you prefer things on the printed page, you need to subscvribe to the excellent CompassSport magazine (see here), which publishes event information and an annual review of major events.

Britain

Orienteering travellers will be interested in the Scottish 6-Day at Oban on July 31 - August 6th. Details here. This is one of the more popular holiday events with runners from all over Europe, and is pretty accessible by plane or ferry. Scottish terrain is challenging and varied, with open mountainside, natural forest and plantation, with great competition in every class and plenty to do when not orienteering.
Apart from this, there are major events around the country and details are all on the British Orienteering web site here. They include National Events in Norfolk on 19/20 February (incorporating the Midland Championships), the Southern Championships near Henley on March 13th, the Northern Championships near Newcastle on March 27th, British Championships at Sheffield on May 14th/15th, and the Scottish Championships near Comrie on 27th May.
The City of London race (run in streets and parks but longer than a sprint) is on 10th September and is acquiring a reputation as a "must-do" event, rather like the Venice street-O. Details here.

Europe

At the top of the orienteering tree is the World Championships, this year in France in August. WOC2011 10-20 August, Savoie Grand Revard, near Chambery in SE France. Details here. There's a series of open events on during the WOC from August 14-20th - details here. Cheaper entries are available before May 1st but beware - the rules in France state that you have to have a recent medical certificate in order to compete there.
Earlier, we have the Portugese O-Meeting on 3-8 March, this year inland (last year's was close to the coast). Details here. It's around Portalegre on the east side of Portugal but unfortunately it doesn't coincide with the schools mid-term as it's tied to the start of Lent. It's followed by a World Ranking event at Evora, near Lisbon, on March 11-13. Details here. Curiously, there's another WRE in Spain on the same days, near Valencia. See here. Allan Bogle's "Active Canaria" are running training on Grand Canaria  there's a 3-Dayon February  11-13: details here.
Further north, the Spring Cup in Denmark marks the end of hibernation for the Scandinavians and is popular with Irish and British runners. The three day competition at Roskilde features a night relay, night sprint, individual and relay races on March 21-23. Details here.
If you'd prefer something a bit warmer, the Mediterranean O-Champs is on at the same time in Sicily with all the events close together. Details here.

One superb orienteering area is around Asiago in Trentino, northern Italy, where the Highlands Open and Italian Middle Distance Championships are on 14/15 May, with a training camp during the week before it. See where John Feehan runs! Details here.
Moving towards the summer,and just after our own Shamrock O-|Ringen, you might be tempted by the Belgian 3-Day on June 11-13 near Charleroi (Ryanair). A week later, the Jukola 7-person overnight relay in Finland, is at Salpa, 15 km from the Russian border and only 2 hours from St Petersburg. They expect 16000 runners and 40000 visitors: a fantastic weekend.
July is peak season for multi-day holiday events, and Kainuu Week in Finland may be worth a look. Its on July 3-8 at Kuhmo, but it's 600 km from Helsinki. More realistic is the Finnish 5-Day Fin-5 from July 11-16, only 50 km west of Helsinki. The O-Ringen (Swedish 5-Day) is at Mohed in Halsingland (250 km north of Stockholm) from July 24-29: is it the biggest sporting event in the world? There is a large choice of classes and competition types: teams, kids, beginners etc, so there's something for everyone, not just the elites. Details here.

Elsewhere

For those of you in the Defence Forces, the CISM World Military O-Championships are in Brazil in July, as part of the World Military Games. Details here.

Mapping Meeting

Club Mapping Officers were invited to a LIDAR/GPS workshop on Saturday 15th January 2011 at Lumville House, The Curragh, Co. Kildare. The workshop covered the use of LIDAR and GPS in the production of orienteering maps. The IOA LIDAR project, which involves the procurement of LIDAR data, was explained, with a practical demonstration of its application along with the use of GPS devices, plus a discussion on the map registration process and a proposal on how the current system can be improved. I hope we'll get a report on the meeting for you to read.

IOC Sprint Race - A Missed Opportunity?

With a fantastic week's orienteering in store at the end of April, starting with the JK and ending with the Irish Championships, what a pity that nobody has undertaken to run an Irish Sprint-O Championships. The JK Sprint race at Stranmillis in Belfast will kick off the JK Festival, but  wouldn't it be great to have an Irish Sprint Championships the following Friday to launch IOC2011?
Belfield campus in Dublin would be a great location, as there's an existing map and a good range of terrains from buildings to open land and forest. Would it need an ISSOM map or would the existing map be enough?
Sprint-O races are great spectator events and give an intense mental and physical workout where tenths of seconds can make all the difference between podium and odium.
Any takers? There's still three months to go ...

New International Rules Published by IOF

From January 1st 2011 there are new rules for international orienteering events. You can read them on the International Orienteering Federation web site here. These rules will also form the basis for national rules in member countries.

Joss Lynam 1924-2011

Joss Lynam was one of the founders of Irish orienteering back in the 1960's. Before that he had been a founding member of the Irish Mountaineering Club and the Association for Adventure Sports (AFAS). He spent a lifetime working for outdoor activities and adventure sports, taking up kyaking in his '40's, climbing in the Alps and the Himalaya, writing multiple guidebooks to mountaineering and hillwalking in Ireland, editing the IMC journal "Mountain Log" for many years.
No doubt there will be many eloquent and glowing tributes to Joss, but for my part I came to know him first through AFAS and our respective editorships of the mountaineering and orienteering newsletters. Joss was ahead of his time in buying an early Macintosh computer back in the early '80's and I followed suit after seeing his.
He had a comprehensive collection of books and maps and was always happy to share his knowledge. I had enormous respect for him: the effort he put in to keeping Tiglin Adventure Centre running on a shoestring, the enthusiasm he showed for projects like the long distance walks and other Sports Council projects was remarkable.
In orienteering terms Joss was a well known face at events in Leinster and further afield; as an engineer he had an interest in surveying and put his skills to good use to produce some of our earliest orienteering maps and the first colour O-maps in Ireland.
Joss was a founder member of Irish Orienteers, the original Irish O-club, and later of Three Rock OC whose AGM he, and his wife Nora, rarely missed. He was recently in touch about the annual Christmas Score event run by 3ROC to apologise for not being able to help.
Joss's orienteering legacy lives on through his daughter, Ruth, the IOA Junior Affairs Officer, and her sons Ruairí and Conor Short.
Our sympathy goes to his wife, Nora, daughters Ruth and Clodagh and their families.
Joss died on 9th January 2011. May he rest in peace.

Event Postponements

Due to the severe weather, the 3ROC Xmas Score event on St Stephen's Day has been put back a week to Sunday 2nd January 2011. The situation will be reviewed closer to that day if there are still travel difficulties.

The NWOC Christmas event at Ballykelly Wood has been put back to Monday January 3rd.

No news about Currabinny or Ballincollig Park on December 27th, but check with the organisers before you travel.

Some of the Goal Mile runs on Christmas day have also been cancelled (Belfield in Dublin for one).

Still, if you can make it outdoors over Christmas, you could try a permanent O-course: download the maps at coillteoutdoors.ie

In the meantime, Happy Christmas!

The annual TIO preview of interesting 2011 competitions is in preparation. If you have any suggestions (Greenland, anyone?) please e-mail theirishorienteer@gmail.com

John McC.

Snow shoes? - O-shoes!

Bothered by the weather? Just get your O-shoes on and get out running. You'll be the fastest, safest people around ...

December Events
Check that the event is on before you travel!
With an eye on the weather, the fixtures plans are for the final Leinster League race of 2010 at the Curragh, Co. Kildare on Sunday December 12th, preceded by the first Dublin by Night event at St Anne's Park, Raheny on Tuesday 7th. Maybe there'll be a special Ski-O class at these?
WATO's event at Carrickbyrne on Sunday 5th has been cancelled and the Curragh event has been put back to the 12th because of the snow but with a small-scale mass start score event on the Curragh at 12.00 on the 5th if you want a run..
British course planning guru Graham Nilsen is due to give a course planning course on Saturday December 4th in Bewleys' Hotel at Newlands Cross in Dublin and there are still a couple of places available.
Later in the month the final Munster League event is scheduled for Kilworth on the 11th; more local events in Munster are listed on the fixtures list here. For NIOA events see here.

Connacht Championships 2010

Western Eagles ran the Connacht Championships at the end of November, returning to Portumna forest on the banks of the Shannon in Co. Galway. The snowfalls affecting coastal areas gave Portumna a miss and conditions on the day were cold and dry. The forest is an unusual one - flat and largely runnable with a network of roads. The map had a somewhat unusual colour scheme (dark browns and purple-blues) and variable readability. Looking at the 1996 Irish Relay Championships map of the same area showed that clarity has been lost in the current, computer-produced version.
Yet again, one has to marvel at how the handful of orienteers in the west can keep the sport alive, and full credit to Frank Ryan and the other WEGO members for running the event. Nevertheless (at the risk of being branded overcritical) more use could perhaps have been made of the area by adding butterflies and loops in the most interesting parts of the forest, instead of so much road running, though there may have been other factors and constraints on planning that the competitors were unaware of.
The men's course of 11.3 km saw Cork's Marcus Pinker take top spot in 68.33 from 3ROC's Ger Butler and CNOC's Ruairi Short, in a field of 15 finishers. Sharon Lucey (FermO) won the 9 km W21 Long course in 79.17 followed by Niamh Morrissey (DFO) and Ruth Lynam (CNOC).
Closest finish of the day was in M18 where Cillín Corbett (CorkO) had a mere 9 seconds to spare over GEN's Laurence Quinn.
Full results are here.

Christmas Presents

Looking for ideas for the orienteer in your life? How about a new, faster SportIdent card for shaving those precious seconds off your orienteering times? See here for details.
What about a new pair of O-shoes? You can try on a pair at any event attended by our own Pat Healy. Contact Pat at healy.pat@gmail.com

Carol McNeill, multiple British Champion and World Champion team member, has written a new book on orienteering: Orienteering Skills, Techniques, Training. Carol works as an outdoors instructor and has vast experience of coaching and competition. STG£7.99 + postage. Details here. [In a previous book of Carol's the gremlins got to work and produced something along the lines of "Running through the forest and finding the red and white controls never ceases to lose its appeal", which is the opposite of what she meant!]

If you want an outdoors book, have a look at "Terrain Training for Off -Road Runners" and "An Introduction to Trail and Fell Running" by Kevin Shevels. (Details here). The web site also has esoteric books on uphill and downhill running techniques, and navigation for off-road runners.
Thinking of taking in a major event but don't want the hassle and expense of travel? Treat yourself to Easter 2011 at the Jan Kjellstrom O-Festival, coming to Belfast and Co. Down in April. Enter from one to four days of competition here. See jk2011.org.uk for full details. Take in the Trail Orienteering, and then the colour events and training in Louth and Wicklow to bring you through to the Irish Championships in Wicklow the next weekend ...
At a loose end over Christmas? There's orienteering at Three Rock Wood, Dundrum, Dublin on St Stephen's Day; at Currabinny Wood (Cork) and Ballincollig Regional Park (Cork) on the 27th, and there may be some hill races around then too. Not to mention the Goal Mile runs, mostly on Christmas Day. (Details here).
Or how about a subscription to CompassSport magazine? Britain's national orienteering magazine, edited by Swedish-based Nick Barrable, has an increasingly international flavour. Details here.

The Forest Sport

Remember when orienteering was known as the Forest Sport? Maybe that was before photogrammetry allowed us to map complex open areas and we moved out of the trees. Coillte, the state forestry organisation, are doing their best to entice us back into the woods, by cooperating with local orienteering clubs to instal permanent orienteering courses in state forests around the country.
Five areas have been set up in the Dublin area, jointly between Coillte, O-clubs and the Dublin Mountains Partnership: Hellfire Wood, the adjacent Massy's Estate, Carrickgolligan and Barnaslingan IKilternan) are already operating and Ticknock (Three Rock Mountain) is about to go live. Other POC's are at Avondale (Wicklow), Farran (Cork), Lough Key (Roscommon), Donadea (Kildare) and Currah Chase (Limerick) and more are in the pipeline. There are more than twenty POC's in Northern Ireland, according to the British Orienteering web site, but they have to be bought on site rather than downloaded in the comfort of your own home.
The beauty of these POC's is that you can now download the course and map from the Coillte Outdoors website and just go orienteering - it's ideal for families, anyone wanting a training run, schools and scout groups, for example.
There have been POC's before, but the internet had revolutionised them so that you no longer have to seek out the local shop or forest office to buy a map, and the clubs can keep the maps up to date easily.
Some of the courses have an educational nature walk element built in, to appeal to schools and a wider public.
So some day when there's nothing on, head for the hills and persuade your schoolmates, work colleagues or neighbours to have a go!
Details on the coillteoutdoors.ie site

Junior Training

The final Junior Training session of 2010 took place in the complex moraines of Knockbarron, near Kinnitty, Co. Offaly on 27th November, with squad members from Ulster, Leinster and Munster taking part. Organiser Ruth Lynam drafted in the help of elites Marcus Pinker, Darren Burke, Colm Hill and Ruairi Short to help shadow the juniors and give them the benefits of their own experience. Colm scared them with his training diary (see it on the AttackPoint web site here!) but they all coped well with the technical challenge of the 2-metre contours and the range of exercises ranging from compass work to a line event (following a wiggly line on the map to see if you can find the control)s, finishing with a gut-busting relay. At least it warmed them up a bit! After a night in the (aptly named, considering the weather) Birr outdoor centre the group took in the Connacht Championships at Portumna on the second day.

2011 World Championships reminder

Intention forms and selection policy guidelines are now available for next years World Champs in France.
All seniors who intend to take part in the WOC2011 selection process should complete the intention form and return to Ivan Millar at elite@orienteering.ie before December 31st.
All Irish seniors are urged to take part in the selection process whether they have WOC ambitions or not. Being a part of the process exposes you to high level and exciting competition and can really improve your orienteering in many different ways.
The documents can be downloaded from the new Irish WOC2011 blog here
Ivan Millar (High Performance Director)

New Technology

Marcus Geoghegan writes "There is a little used feature of Ór (the orienteering software package developed by Ajax's Martin Flynn - Ed) called "live results" which automatically sends up-to-date results to the web every two minutes. Anyone with a web browser can see the competitors’ times as they come in, anywhere in the world. If you have a phone with a web browser (most of them do) then you can see the live results at the event.
If you were at Ajax’s recent event in Marlay Park you will have seen a square symbol on the bottom of your splits sheet (example at http://tinyurl.com/3x69fnt). Mobile phones scan these Quick Response (QR) codes and are automatically directed to a website. They are becoming commonplace in outdoor advertising and in magazines as a fast way of directing a phone to a product or event website. There is a QR code reader available for most camera phones; you don’t need a fancy smartphone for this to work.
Putting these two technologies together (Ór live results and QR codes) means that anyone at an Ajax event can use their phone to scan the QR code and instantly see the results as they happen (or you can type in the web address if you don’t have a QR code reader on your phone).

Switching-on online results in Ór is easy and it will automatically tell you the web address for the online results. Of course you will need to have an internet connection on your event laptop, but most events nowadays have mobile phone coverage so you can use a broadband dongle.
Generating the QR code to display at your event is also very easy – try this one: http://qrcode.kaywa.com here.
Yes, even more technology to mess up your nice day out in the woods…

Full steam ahead - October 30th

After some weeks of introductory events after the summer, the competition season gets into full swing this weekend with Munster and Leinster league races on the dunes of Banna, Co. Kerry (where Sir Roger Casement landed from a German submarine in 1916) and at Brockagh, Co. Wicklow, and a Cork Autumn League event at Rostellan, near Whitegate.

Highlights of November include League events in Leinster on the 7th at Three Rock Wood, near Dundrum, in Munster at Davmore, Co. Waterford and in Ulster at Slievenagore near Newcastle in the Mournes (on Saturday 6th). The same weekend sees the Senior Team travelling to the south of England for the Senior Home International (see more below). November 14th sees a sprint event at Castle Lough Woods, on the shores of Lough Derg, Co. Tipperary, where Bishopstown use the area of a previous Munster Championships.
Schools events feature too, with St Anne's Park in Dublin on the 17th and Farran Forest Park, Co. Cork on the 19th.
Provincial Leagues dominate the weekend of the 20th/21st with Portglenone, Co. Antrim on Saturday 20th, the Vale of Clara, Co. Wicklow, Torc/Muckross in Kerry, Colligan (Co. Waterford) and a County league at Farran, Co. Cork.
The 30th sees Western Eagles staging the Connacht Championships at Portumna, Co. Galway - a flat, forest with good detail and fast running (but plenty of ticks in previous years). Lower-cost entries available until 5th November. See details here.

(Photo: Neil Dobbs (WATO), who features on the JK 2011 entry form)

JK 2011 Preview

The biggest orienteering competition to visit these shores is just around the corner. For years we have been travelling to England, Scotland and Wales at Easter for the Jan Kjellstrom 4-day orienteering festival, the premier British orienteering competition, eatsblished to commemorate the young Swedish orienteer who helped establish the sport in Britain. (Jan was the son of Alvar Kjellstrom, the founder of the Silva compass company). Now it's coming to us: next Easter in Belfast and in Co. Down.
You have no excuse: if you aren't running, you are needed to help (and even if you are running your help will be much appreciated!).
Something like 2000 runners from Britain, Ireland, continental Europe and beyond are expected, and the organisers are laying on a full programme for them.
The festival kicks off with a sprint race on a new map of Stranmillis College and surroundings, in Belfast, on Good Friday; then an individual race in Co. Down on Saturday, followed by another individual race at Slieve Croob - again in Co. Down - on Sunday and a relay on sand dunes at Tyrella, Co.Down on Monday. In addition to these events there will be training opportunities in the days before the JK and in the week between the JK and the Irish Championships in Wicklow.
All the NIOA clubs are involved in the organisation and a large number of volunteers are needed: event co-ordinator Harold White is urging all all Irish O-clubs to help.
Visit the JK2011 web site JK2011.org.uk here for updates. Entries are already open, so get in there!

Entries open
On-line entries have opened for some major events:
JK2011, Easter in Northern Ireland. See JK2011.org.uk here. Cheapest entries up to January 30th.
Irish Championships, May, in Co. Wicklow. Details here.
World Masters O-Championships, Hungary. Details here. Lowest cost entries up to October 31st.

  SHI Team
The Irish team to compete at the Senior Home International in Southern England on November 6th and 7th has been selected. Will the Seniors emulate the Juniors and beat Wales, or will the follow the Veterans and be beaten by the Welsh? The team will be:
M21: Darren Burke, Gerard Butler, Seamus O'Boyle, Colm O'Halloran, Marcus Pinker and Ruairi Short.
M20: Niall Ewen, Conor Short, Josh O'Sullivan-Hourihan
W21: Aislinn Austin, Rosalind Hussey, Ruth Lynam, Niamh O'Boyle, Toni O'Donovan and Faye Pinker.
W20: Fiona Hill, Olivia Baxter
The relay event will be held on Saturday in Pamber Forest, while the individual competition will be held as part of the November Classic in New Forest, Southampton. Details here.

  Controllers'Course

Belgian event controller Rogier Vanaken came to Ireland and gave an interesting course for Controllers and prospective controllers at the Kilcoran Lodge Hotel near cahir, Co. Tipperary, on October 16th. He has wide experience as a high-level IOF technical advisor and travels to many countries to help run major international competitions.
About a dozen orienteers from clubs in Dublin, Cork, Waterford and Galway attended the lectures and discussions in the hotel and then made their way to Toureen Wood in the Glen of Aherlow for the practical sessions.
Rogier brought the group up to date on new IOF rules, dealing with control placement, electronic timing, organisation and the functions o the controller (ot "technical advisor"). He also covered some of the differing requiremants for sprint, classic and relay planning.
Did you know, for example, that a control should be placed at least 1 metre from the feature, to allow competitors to get in to punch, that the first control in a course should be fairly easy to avoid runners bunching up while they search for it; or that  you can put a control in a pit or depression if it is close to a clear attackpoint (otherwise it has to be on the edge or top)?
He said that the main function of the controller/technical advisor is to help the planner to get the best courses for the competitors.
A course like this is a prerequisite for anyone aiming to be an IOA controller.
You can read the IOA Rules on the IOA web site here, and the IOF Rules at www.orienteering.org here. The IOA Rules are currently being updated but the basics remain the same.

Planners' Course

Graham Nilsen from Great Britain (one of the controllers for next year's JK O-festival in Northern Ireland) is giving a course planning course on Saturday December 4th in Dublin. The course will be at Bewley's Hotel at Newlands Cross (between the M50 and the M7/M8 Cork/Limerick road).
Graham has written the book (literally - here is the link) on course planning and the course should be an essential part of every planners' toolkit.
There's a Leinster League event on the Curragh (about 20 minutes from the hotel) the following day.
Details from IOA soon.

October 2010

Welsh Washout

A numerically under-strength team combined with a disappointing performance saw Wales defeat the Irish Veteran Home International team at the VHI last weekend. The orienteers didn't have the excuse of the weather, unlike the golfers, as its main effect was to delay some runners because of flooded roads.
England took the title, followed by Scotland, while the Irish weren't able to emulate the Juniors, scoring only 82  points tio Wales' 170. The team ran gallantly but it was not to be.

Both events were run on the Gower peninsula, a rural area near Swansea, and both races were run on fantastic areas of sand dunes. The individual event on Saturday was at Whitford Burrows, mostly open runnable dunes with some bits of complex coniferous forest. Running conditions were perfect - mild and dry, and the 1:10000 scale map with 2.5 m contours was excellent.
Fine runs by Marcus Pinker (2nd M35), Ruth Lynam (5th W55) and Steven Linton (3rd M40) , Colm Rothery (3rd M50) and Colm O'Halloran (5th M45) weren't enough to save the day, however, as the Irish team was seriously under strength, missing one M40, two W40's and one W35 from the full complement of 24 runners. In the individual race there are no spare runners - every one counts; in the Relay only the top four teams (out of a possible 6) count for each country. So, after Day 1 the score was England 136, Scotland 139, Wales 98, Ireland 64.
After heavy rain on Saturday night, the approach roads were flooded and the start was delayed. The rain cleared about the time of the relay mass start and, again, conditions were good for running. Broughton Burrows (not to be confused with JK2010's Braunton Burrows), mapped at 1:7500 with 2.5 m contours, was again, runnable sand dunes, but with bigger dunes than Saturday. fences running across the dunes broke the area up into smaller parcels.
Disaster struck the Irish camp, however, when A-team 2nd leg runner Colm Rothery missed a control and the team (Marcus Pinker, Ruth Lynam, Colm and Kathryn Walley) were eliminated. A second Irish team were non-competitive when an injured Wilbert Hollinger couldn't run, even though team manger Raymond Finlay stood in. The remaining three Irish teams finished and picked up 18 points against Wales' 72, a tally made possible by Wales brilliant win (anchored by former Shamrock O-Ringen winner Liz Campbell) by only 2 seconds over England.

Back to the maps, though: an earlier version of the Whiteford map had a feature I've never seen before: the dunes were mapped with 2.5 metre contours but the high, rather featureless hills at each end were mapped with 5 m contours, with a big warning arrow on the map to show the change. A Welsh solution to a Welsh problem?

At the end of the day the result showed that there's no substitute for strength in depth, which the English and Scottish have in full measure. It also shows that a sure way to lose a Home International is to start with the handicap of an incomplete team, which is a pity, and a rather last-minute selection of  the team contributed to availability and travel problems.

Anyway, here's to next year in England ...

2010 Veteran Home International (hosted by Swansea Bay Orienteering Club)
VHI Individual - Whiteford Burrows, 2 Oct. 2010
VHI Relay - Broughton Burrows, 3 Oct. 2010
Provisional results (points to be confirmed)
                 Ind. Relay Total
1. England 136 108  244
2. Scotland 129 72   201
3. Wales     98 72    170
4. Ireland    64 18     82

Ireland: M35 Marcus Pinker, Declan McGrellis; M40 Steven Linton, (vacant); M45 Colm O'Halloran, Dave Weston; M50 Colm Rothery, Ronan Cleary; M55 John McCullough, Val Jones; M60 Wilbert Hollinger, Richard McCourt; W35 Violet Linton, (vacant); W40 (Vacant), (vacant); W45 Heather Cairns, Julie Cleary; W50 Kathryn Walley, Nadine Grant; W55 Ruth Lynam, Barbara Foley-Fisher; W60 Teresa Finlay, Aine ní Shúilleabháin.

Full results here.

VHI Trivia: The Junior Home International in 2005 was run on the same two areas and the finishing order was the same; Ruth Lynam may be the only person to attend all three Home Internationals this year: the JHI as Team manager, and the Veteran and Senior events as a team member. (The SHI is in England in November).

Leinster League gets underway.

The first event of the 2010-11 Leinster League series gets underway at Ballymahon, Co. Longford on Sunday October 10th. Setanta have revised the 1983 map of the area, consisting of flat forest (the earlier map also had some fields, parkland and a golf course) and promise the usual range of colour-coded courses from Yellow (short and easy) up to Brown (long and difficult). Details on the Setanta web site here. Read about the area on the Coillte Outdoors site here.
The remaining Leinster League events are at Mall Hill/Brockagh (Laragh, Co. Wicklow) on October 31st, Three Rock Wood (November 7th), Vale of Clara (November 21st), and Curragh East (December 5th). The Spring series will start in February with another event in Longford, run by Fingal.

World Cup in France

Read about the adventures of the Irish squad at the Workld Cup races in France last weekend on the Senior Squad blog here. They've started preparing for next year's World Championships in Aix les Bains and Chambéry in eastern France in August 2011.

Fáilte go WMOC 2011

The World Masters Championships in Hungary next year have taken the unusual step of including an introduction and welcome page on the event website in the language of each national O-Federation. The event is at Pecs (scene of the 1983 World Championships) from June 30 to July 9th. Just click on the Irish flag at the top of the page to get a real céad mile fáilte to the event! Try it here. Bain triall as anseo.
(Family orienteerinhg holiday planners note: JWOC in Poland 1st-9th July; EYOC in the Czech Republic 23rd-26th June).

Controllers Course Reminder

A one-day Controllers course is being held on Saturday 16 October at Kilcoran Lodge, near Cahir, Co. Tipperary on the old Cork road. It is being taken by Rogier Vanaken who took a similar course in 2007. He has competed for Belgium at several World Championship events, and now acts as their senior team Coach. He was appointed as an IOF Event Advisor in 1991 and has acted in that capacity at many IOF events since then.
The course is designed for those who wish to become IOA Certified Event Controllers, and for those who wish to update their controlling skills and knowledge. It will cover all aspects of controlling, and practical exercises will take place in the neighbouring Glengarra Wood. The subsidised cost of the course is €25, that includes the cost of lunch, light breakfast etc. The Lodge is offering an overnight rate of €55 should anyone wish to stay on the Friday or Saturday evenings. CorkO are staging an event in Glengarra Wood on the Sunday.
To book a place, you should send a cheque for €25 to Aine Joyce, Irish Orienteering Association, 2nd Floor, 13 Upper Baggot Street, Dublin 4, or you can e-mail her at osec@orienteering.ie
The course is limited to 20 participants and places will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
Just to give forward notice, a Planning Workshop will be held on Saturday 4 December and details will be issued shortly.
Harold White
Controller of Technical Standards

Ireland Beat Wales in Junior Home International

JHI 2010 – Scotland

Mike Long (Ajax) writes: I had the pleasure of attending my first Junior Home International over the weekend of 10-12 September, based around Perth and Stirling in Scotland. On paper the Irish team looked strong and so it was proven in practice with a comfortable overall win over Wales to win the Judith Wingham trophy for the first time in many years. Can anybody actually remember when we last won?

The JHI coincided with the Park World Tour urban sprint race in Perth. Our first port of call therefore was Scone Castle on the Friday afternoon where we were able to run over the courses earlier used by the elites in the qualification race for Saturday’s final. A sample from the map is shown below.

Personally I found the dark green detail confusing but it did not seem to bother the Juniors. As Greg pointed out to me “you have to run at the same speed as which you can orienteer”.

There was also a maze-O (south end of map) done by the Juniors without a map! The winner was Alex who got to the centre via the exit. Nobody had spelled out the rules! It was a good start and got everyone’s head on the job at hand.

Unusually the relay was held on Saturday (so that all could go to watch the elites in Perth town centre later). Several of the Juniors were familiar with the map of Kinnoull Hill, as it had been used at the 2009 Scottish 6 day. The map (part of if reproduced below) is characterised by steep runnable woodland with many paths. In fact most of the juniors said they had to ignore the paths, which they found confusing, and focus on the contours.

Overall we did very well. The boys were 8th, 11th and 12th and the girls were 7th, 11th and 13th. At the end of the day England, on 54 points, had a 4 point lead over Scotland. We were on 24 points, 8 ahead of Wales.

Then it was off to Perth where we had the pleasure of watching Irish Champions Niamh O’Boyle and Nick Simonin compete with some of the best elites in the world, literally in Perth town centre, much to the bemusement of the local shoppers. Both placed in the top 10 behind the very impressive Helena Jansson of Sweden and Østein Kvaal Østerbø of Norway.

Then there was the ceilí. I will let someone else tell the story here!

On to Devilla Forest for the long distance individual races on Sunday. Here the forest was pretty flat with much fewer paths and subtle (to me at least!) contour detail, see below. The only issue here was the “white” areas were very rough with waist (except for Colm Moran) high heather and a network of old drains. Keeping a bearing was very difficult. The M18’s had a very long leg through the middle of the map and several of the lads chose to run the path to the east (some 3 km) which turned out to be as quick.

 Again the performances were very good our best runner in each class were Caoimhe (7th), Niamh (7th), Áine (6th), Jonathan (4th), Jack (6th) and Séan (5th): strong across the board.

We ended up on 61 points well ahead of Wales 45. England, on 135 points, also had a very comfortable 16 point margin over Scotland. Full detailed results can be found here.

My overall view of the results was that although we had no individual medal winner we performed strongly with strength in depth in most of the classes and we were certainly not hovering around the bottom.

My three personal running highlights of the weekend were:
Clíona Mc Cullough first back in the relay despite leaving both her shoes in a marsh in the forest!
The sight of the four M16’s finishing the relay more or less together
Jonathan Quinn’s excellent 4th place in the M14 long distance, 13 seconds off a medal (The picture below shows Jonathon with the winning team trophy. Jonathan was also named the best Irish performer).

The entire Irish crew are shown below:

Cillín Corbett, Niamh Corbett, Laura Cox, Megan Getliff,  Donal Kearns., Seán Knight, Róisín Long, Áine McCann, Clíona McCullough, Peter Meehan, Jack Millar, Colm Moran, Caoimhe O'Boyle, Cathal OCléirigh, Laurence Quinn, Jonathan Quinn, Deirdre Ryan, Conor Short, Alex Simonin, Andrea Stefkova, Jill Stephens, Mark Stephens.
(Sports Council regulations evidently prohibit under 18's being identified by name in photos, so the team is listed alphabetically - Ed).

The other competition of the weekend was on the various roads between Edinburgh, Perth and Stirling. The drivers Ruth, Kathryn and I were forced into various, often strange, route choices by our intrepid navigators. Laurence and Colm can fill in the details!

It was the last JHI for Colm, Conor, Laura and Séan. They will be clearly missed but a first for Cathal, Donal, Peter, Róisín and Megan. One would have to conclude all is well in Irish Junior Orienteering. It was also clear to me that none of the above would have happened without the dedication and hard work over the past number of years by Ruth and Greg. Roll on 2011!
There are more reports on the event on the Irish Junior Squad page here and on the Northern Ireland OA site here. For runners routes on Routegadget in the individual race, see here. For more photos, see here.

The mystery M16 with the Judith Wingham Trophy

(JHI 2011 is due to be in Ireland and the usual date is in September - Ed)