January 2012/1

Happy New Year
Rather belatedly, Happy New Year everyone. After the Christmas excesses (the Goal Mile, maybe followed by a run up the mountains on Christmas day, then orienteering on St Stephen's Day, followed maybe by the Djouce trail race, the Setanta hike and a race on New Year's day), it's good to be back to normal!
Why not make a new year promise to yourself to try some new orienteering experience this year, whether it's night-O, Trail orienteering, sprint-O, mountain bike orienteering, running in a new county, a new province or a new country? The world is your oyster ...

Accessible orienteering

In the current economic climate, orienteering can represent great value for money: where else would you find a fun day out for a family for an entry fee of €20 or less? One of the major costs of orienteering is transport, however. This could be tackled in several ways: bring to people to the orienteering by public transpiort, by special O-buses (there used to be buses organised to events so that non car-owners could still travel) or by car-pooling as the IMRA have been forced to do to reduce parking difficulties. Another way is to bring the orienteering to the people: the growth of urban orienteering, in the UK and across the world, has opened up the sport to runners and others who might not have tried it before; you can run events on people's doorsteps and still provide an orienteerting challenge.
With sprint and urban races taking place in competitions with the profile of the World Championships, we can no longer say that we don't have suitable terrain in Ireland. We may not have the complex forests of Scandinavia, but we have the towns and cities to make challenging city races and maybe draw in a whole new generation of orienteer who will then move on to the classic sport.
Anywhere with a higgeldy-piggeldy core should provide a good challenge; throw in a few parks, a few hills and some buildings like a university campus and you're almost there. Look at any map of an old Irish town and see the potential: Cork, Wexford, Waterford, Kilkenny, Drogheda, Newry, Galway, Howth, Sligo, Dublin, Balfast, Derry ...  Of course we need the orienteers there to first produce the maps and then to capitalise on the event and grow the sport, and we need the existing orienteers to support the events, but even might oak trees grow from little acorns ...

New Squad Blogs
Ivan Millar has launched two new blogs for 2012: one follows the Senior Squad's preparation for the World Championships in Switzerland in July (see it here) and the other follows the elites generally - see here. World Championships selection will take place at the Jubilee 5-Days orienteering in Scotland at the beginning of June, unfortunately clashing with the Irish 3-Day in Galway.

Try Night-O
It's one of orienteering's better-kept secrets. Night orienteering adds new challenges - it makes even the most innocuous areas interesting, and makes interesting areas much more so. There are three events left in the Dublin by Night series (Barnaslingan (behind The Scalp near Kilternan) on Jan 28th; Slade Valley, Saggart on 4th February and The Curragh on February 11th). The Northern Ireland Night Championships are also on February 11th at Parkanaur, near Dungannon, Co. Tyrone. Details from LVO here. Note: For insurance reasons, night orienteering is restricted to M/W 16 and above.

2012 O-Planner
It's that time again - armchair planning for the events you'd like to take in in 2012. There are competitions at home and abroad, one-day to multi-day, suitable for all ages and abilities, some family-friendly, some less so, some big, some small. If you can recommend any events that you think others might enjoy, send the details to TIO and I'll include them. Have a browse here and see what appeals to you....

January

Do some night orienteering! See the IOA fixtures list for details.

February

18-21 Portugal O-Meet, see here. This is tied in with the date of Easter but this year it coincides a bit with schools' mid-term: good for kids, bad for air fares. Inland, not too far from Porto.
18-20 Morocco 3-Days including sprint and supersprints. See here.
24-25 Israel Championships near Jerusalem. See here.
25-26 Marina Grande, Portugal. World Ranking event. See here.

March

2-4 Murcia, Spain. Details here. At this time of year the south of Spain can be lovely to run in: oranges and lemons fresh from the trees at the finish ...
10-11 Slovenia. Karst limestone terrain near Trieste. See here.
23-25 Mediterranean Championships, Rome. 2 middle distance, 1 sprint. Park World Tour. See here.
24-25 Danish Spring: a new format and a new name for the Spring Cup. May be a bit early for some - there can be snow on the ground still, but this is when the Scandinavians come out of hibernation. See here.
 24-25 British Sprint and Middle Distance Championships, York. Details here.

April

6-9 JK2010 at Easter in Scotland. Challenging terrain (the 2015 World Championships will be in Scotland) and the awesome Craig'a'Barns near Dunkeld. Don't miss it! See here.
6-9 Sardinia 4-Days. See here.
6-8 Prague Easter. Sandstone forests in the Czech Republic. See here.
13-15 US Championships, Georgia. Sprint, Middle, Long, Trail-O. See here.

May

5-7 Irish Championships in Kerry. Sand dunes at Castlegregory, Inch and the Maherees. Bishopstown OC.
5-7 British Championships, Cumbria. A pity they clash with the Irish Champs. A new BOF rule means that non British Citizens can't be British Champions, though, so we may see a few more of our UK-based orienteers running at IOC instead of BOC. Details here.
5-6 Tio Mila overnight relay for teams of ten runners; legs from 7 to 18 km, near Linkoping, Sweden (served by Ryanair). Details here.
5-6 European Rogaine Champs, Kaunas, Lithuania. See here. Good preparation for the annual Setanta Rogaine! (A rogaine is a long distance score event, typically 12 or 24 hours).
14-20 European Championships, Dalarna, Sweden. Public races from 17th to 20th. Entry cap at 5000. Details here.
17-20 Holland-OL. 5 events in 4 days at Breda in Holland. Details here.

June

2-3 Bruges O-weekend Belgium. Details later here.
2-4 Irish 3-Day, Oughterard, Co. Galway. WEGO three-day. Can Oughterard match Inishbofin for differentness and good orienteering? We'll have to wait and see ... Details here.
2-5 Scottish Championships and Jubilee-5 weekend: details here. Sounds like a fantastic few days orienteering; includes the Irish Team selection races for the World Championships.
2-5 Jubilee O-Festival, south east England. Details here.
16-17 Jukola and Venla Relays, near Helsinki, Finland. A must-do-in-your-lifetime event. Overnight 7-person relay for anyone, Venla 4-person relay for ladies in the afternoon. Details here.
16-17 Veteran Home Internationals, Northern Ireland. A pity it clashes with the Jukola, but it's great to have the event in June and not October or November when the weather can be against us.
18-23 Tallinn O-Week, Estonia. Includes two World Ranking events on sand dune forests. See here.
20-24 Greenland "Nuuk O-Festival". See here. Maybe only for the really committed!
23 Setanta Orienteers' Wicklow Rogaine.
29-July 1 European Youth O-Champs, Bugeat, Correze, France. Runners in M/W 14/16/18. There should be open events for the rest of us too. See here.
29-July 2 Belgian 3-Day near Liege. Long WRE (World Ranking Event), Middle and Long, plus training. See here.

July

1-6 Kainuu O-Week, Finland. Details here.
1-8 World Masters O-Champs, Harz Mountains, Germany, on the border of the old East/West Germany. Age classes M/W 35+, no selection required - just pay and play! See here.
2-8 Sorlandsgaloppen, southern Norway. Details here.
7-13 Junior World Championships, Kosice, Slovakia. Age classes M/W 20 only. Details here. 4-day public event also running with JWOC - details here.
15-20 Swiss 5-Day and World Champs, Lausanne, Switzerland. Support the Irish team at WOC! Details here.
22-27 Swedish O-Ringen 5-Day near Malmo, southern Sweden (easily accessible). The biggest multi-day event of all. See here. "Sand, sea and beech forest". In recent years the O-Ringen has really opened up, with team events, a 2-day race, mountain bike and trail orienteering included.
22-28 Croeso Welsh 6-Day, Aberystwyth. The Irish Juniors are going here for their 2012 tour. Details here. Cheapest entry closes on January 31st.
24-29 Croatia Open, Delnice, northern Croatia. Negative Karst terrain, lots of huge depressions in the forest for 5 days. See here.

August

1-5 OO Cup, Slovenia. Includes "Ultimate" classes where the maps have no paths! See here. More karst forests, with the famous Postonja caves nearby.
9-12 Tyr-OL 3-Days, Austrian alps, including a World Ranking event. Sprint, Middle, Long. See here.
31-Sept 1 World Rogaining Championships, Prague. See here.

September

1 Copeland Islands, Co. Down. LVO event. Check your tidal tables before you travel ...
5-9 SE Europe O-Champs, Bursa, Turkey. Details here.
22 City of London race. If you can't make it to Venice in November, try this, the 5th staging of the event. See here. Followed next day by the Southern Championships at Epping Forest in Essex- see here.
28 Leinster Championships, Carraig na Seabhac, Co. Wicklow. Ajax.

October

2-6 and 7-10 Sicily. Two events back to back. Details here later in the year.
6 Northern Ireland Championships, Binevenegh, Co. Derry
13-14 Junior Home Internationals, south of London.
18-21 North American Championships, Delaware. Details here.
30 Munster Championships, Dromana, Villierstown, Co. Waterford. WatO.
30-Nov 4 Istanbul 5-Days, Turkey. Details here.

November

9-11 Adriatic O-Meeting, Italy, just defore the Venice street event. Details here later in the year.
12 Venice street O. A great event, by all accounts. Details here.
25 Connacht Championships.

December

26-30 Sylvester 5-Days. Annual Christmas time event in Belgium. See here as a starting point.
27-31 Australian Christmas 5-Day,  Victoria. Details later in the year from the Australian O-Federation here. Our own Eoin Rothery, former multiple Irish champion, won the Men's C-class in the 2011 event.

... which brings us back to where we came in!

A really good place to look for events abroad is in the calendar section of the "World of O" web site here. More information and reports on these events will be found in CompassSport magazine (http://www.compasssport.co.uk/). Some of the information in this list came from CompassSport.

Changing age classes?

Are you due to change your orienteering age class in 2012? Your orienteering age is determined by your age on 31st December of the year. Junior age classes go in 2-year increments from M10 or W10 to M/W20; veteran age classes go in 5 year increments from M/W 35 upwards; Open classes (M/W 21) are for ages 21 to 34. Relatively few competitions with the exception of Championships require specific age classes to run on specific courses.

Age classes 2012

Year of birth	Age class
After 2001	M/W10
2000-2001	M/W12
1998-99	M/W14
1996-97	M/W16
1994-95	M/W18
1992-93	M/W20
1978-91	M/W21
1973-77	M/W35
1968-72	M/W40
1963-67	M/W45
1958-62	M/W50
1953-57	M/W55
1948-52	M/W60
1943-47	M/W65
1938-42	M/W70
1933-37	M/W75
1928-32	M/W80
1923-27	M/W85
Before 1923	M/W90

  Harold White receives Torch Trophy

As reported here before Christmas, Harold White has received a Torch Trophy for his voluntary work for orienteering over the years, culminating in his work as coordinator of the successful JK 2011 in Northern Ireland. The photo shows Harold with the award and Princess Alexandra at a ceremony in London. Harold is IOA Technical Officer.




International Trail-O 2012
There are two international Trail-O Championships in 2012. The European Champs will be run alongside the Foot-O in Falun, Sweden from 17th until 20th May; the team can be up to a maximum of 6 in each of the Open and Paralympic classes. The World Championships will be run as a standalone event in Scotland from 6th until 9th June; the team can be up to 3 in each of the Open and Paralympic classes. Preliminary entries have to be in by 15th and 31st of January respectively so this message is seeking expressions of interest from those wishing to be considered for selection in order to gauge the potential size of team. Please respond urgently to atgartside (at) yahoo.co.uk.
It should be noted that those selected will be required to bear the full costs of participation; at the moment it looks as if these will be for ETOC €225 plus accommodation and meals plus return travel from home and for WTOC GB£455 plus return travel from home.

TIO Archive

Delve into the past in the Irish Orienteer Archive from 1982 here.

December 2011/1

Connacht Championships Report

Yet another loaves and fishes event where a small number manage to feed a multitude. The Ryan family and Padraig Higgins staged another Connacht Championships on November 27th, on a new map of open firing-ranges and military land at Oranmore, Co. Galway.
The terrain was fast but provided few technical challenges for the experienced competitors. The map was good (1:10000 scale with 2.5 m contours) and had a much more professional look than the Portumna map used for the 2010 event. Some winning margins were pretty tight (2 seconds in W16) so small errors or route-choice variations could be the difference between winning and losing. Climb was negligible so running the whole course at speed was the only way. The final loop (shared by a large number of courses) traversed an area of long tussocky grass which contrasted with the faster running of most of the map. Old walls and lots of small stony areas shown as cairns, with shell-crater depressions, provided many of the features.
Darren Burke (CorkO) added to his Munster Champs title and won the M21L course, and Ros Hussey (DUO) did the same in W21L. Organisationally, the event was good, with SportIdent timing, results and Routegadget available at teatime (others please copy!) and the opportunity - as with other WEGO events - to enter and pay electronically.
Looking at the courses on Routegadget, there did seem to be a lot of shared legs and some more variation in direction would have provided more interest, and maybe more use could be made of the large depressions rather than just siting a control on the edge at ground level, but I have learned over the years that you criticise a Connacht Championships at your peril!
The area is a bit reminiscent of a nearby one at Kilcolgan used for an IOC Relay (in 1991?) with lots of walls and cairns, but that area was forested which reduced the visibility of the controls and increased the navigational challenge. On this occasion, for me, the controls were too visible and the navigation too easy. It would be a good area for a night event, though.
Results, Routegadget etc here.


Irish Trail-O Championships
LVO staged the Irish Trail-O Championships at Castlewellan on November 26th. Alan Gartside, Stephen Gilmore and Wilbert Hollinger, who would normally be among the top finishers, were involved in the organisation, so it opened the competition up a bit.
There were two classes: one for Irish Champion and one for visitors. John Kewley won the visitors' class with a score of 19 points out of a possible 22, and a decision time of 56 seconds. Interestingly, John was the only one of the 22 competitors to get the first timed control right. Second was GB team-mate Ian Ditchfield also with 19 points but with a decision time of 105 seconds. Christine Roberts was 3rd with 16 points.
In the Irish Championships section, Declan McGrellis again proved his expertise, winning with 18 points and 86.5 seconds from Helen Baxter (18 points, 116 seconds) and Lyle Fleming (16 points, 222 seconds). Details of the event and results (also of previous ITOC's) are here. Planners analysis etc to follow.
It is hoped to run the British Trail-O Championships at Newborough Forest in Anglesey in March, only a stone's throw from Holyhead.
Virtually all the Irish Champs competitors were from LVO so they obviously know about the event. Try finding details of it via the LVO or NIOA websites, though ...

Junior Squad Training for JWOC

Junior World Championships hopefuls had a training weekend at Newcastle, Co. Down on December 3-4 under the watchful eye of coach Greg McCann. The weekend coincided with an LVO competition in Donard Forest on the slopes of the highest mountain in Ulster. Donard, incidemtally, was the location of possibly the first Irish Junior Championships, at a time when the Junior and Senior Champs were separate. That was, I think, in 1977. The map was printed on Tyvek, which was a revolutionary step: it stained easily with mud and blood, but you could read it in the bath (nobody had showers then!).
JWOC 2012 is in Slovakia next summer and age alasses M and W 20 are mainly involved.
There will be further training sessions for the Juniors at the end of January, with the possibility of a spring tour during February mid-term. They will also have a week's training in Scotland after the JK at Easter, and a tour to the Welsh 6-Day in July. Oh to be young again!

Design an O-Top

The Irish Juniors are working on a design of an O-top for international competition. Production of the tops will be subsidised by income earned at JK2011 in Northern Ireland.

Harold awarded Torch Trophy

LVO's Harold White received a Torch Trophy at the end of November to mark his many years of service to orienteering, culminating in his coordinating the very successful JK2011 last Easter. Harold, wearing his 3ROC hat, is also the IOA Technical Officer.

The Torch Trophy Trust has its origins in the 1948 Olympics held in London. Before every Olympic Games a torch relay is organised from Athens to the host city. Following the 1948 Games, the Torch designed for the last leg of the Relay into Wembley Stadium was presented to the Trust.
The Trust provides small bursaries to assist volunteers in sport and presents Awards to individuals who have been identified as making an outstanding contribution as a volunteer in their chosen sport.

For the Torch Trophy Trust, the flaming torch symbolises its dedication to helping and recognising the efforts of volunteers in sport. Click on the flames on this page to find out more, and apply for one of the limited number of Torch Trophy Trust Bursaries.

The Trust is entirely run by volunteers, and its Trustees are some of the best known names in British sport. Those involved include Mary Peters, Jimmy Hill and Bobby Charlton. See more details here.

Congratulations, Harold!

Night-O Starts in Howth

The first night event of the winter is at Howth, Co. Dublin, on Saturday 10th December. Subsequent events in the "Dublin by Night" series are on Saturday January 14th (Phoenix Park), 21st (Ballinascorney), 28th (Carrickgollogan), February 4th (Slade Valley) and 11th (Curragh East). Generally two courses are offered but for insurance reasons they are only open to M/W16 and above. The Howth event will start at the GAA club on Dungriffin Road and there will be two courses, about 3.0 km and 4.5 km. Start times 6 to 7.30 pm. The club bar will be open afterwards for orienteers! Details from Fingal Orienteers here.

O in Venice

Dave Richardson reports from the urban O-event in Venice ...

M50 Venice 2011

Saturday's Park-O

The 2nd weekend in November brought our 2nd visit to the Venice street orienteering event. As last year the Venice event was preceded by two world Park tour sprints, unfortunately the details of the sprint events were only published a month before so we had already made our travel plans.
This year's trip started with a "Park O" event in Venice S.Elena on Saturday afternoon, this was actually a sprint type event on a 1:5000 map. The weather was great for running, 14 deg C, sunny and no wind.
My men's open course was 4.2K and 18 controls around the streets and alleys of an area at the Eastern end of Venice, it was a nice easy introduction to orienteering in Venice for those new to it. I had been in bed with the 'flu most of the week so was reasonably happy with a time of 30:55, I made one small error missing the alley I was looking for on the first control that cost around 30 seconds but other than that no mistakes.
The main Venice street O was Sunday morning, again aroound 14C and sunny. The first start times were at 0900 so by the time we travelled up the Grand Canal on the water boat we could already see orienteers appearing and disappearing up lanes and passages, maps in hand, dodging tourists.
The organisation of the event is good: a large sports centre acts as event centre and has a large basketball arena where everyone changes. The buzz around the place is fantastic, 4000+ orienteers from all over the world all there for the unique experience of the strret O.
A short walk to the Square used for the start, into the -4 box, clear. -3 Check, -2 control descriptions (Wait a minute -  they are all "end of building"!). -1 box ready to go, beep beep beep and off just like every event except this time it's fast and furious. Which alley way to take? The left hand one, across the bridge, second turn on the right and then next right, just down here - yes got it! Good - now I can settle down. The course was 7k but by the time I had navigated the narrow streets I actually ran 11k. There were some really good legs including my 8-9 that was 1.6k including the problem of which Grand Canal bridge to use.
Quick route choices, fine navigation at speed (not so much of the speed for me!) and keeping map contact are the challenges on this 1:7500 map. Small errors losing 30 secs or a minute can lose you 5 -10 places the times are that tight. I finished in 72:13 in 78th place, without the 5 minutes of errors I made I would have been 55th, but that's orienteering.
Personally I can't wait to go back next year and would recommend it to anyone and everyone. Hopefully next year we won't be the only two entries from Irish O-clubs. Visit the Venice orienteering web site here. See the Men's Elite course here.
[Dave found the Venice experience useful a few days later, running in the Ajax Glendoo Ridge event - remember the area of the IOC Relays in May? "First turf bank on the left, second right, third left ...- Ed]
(Editor's note: travel may be simpler next year with the possibility of specially arranged direct flights from Ireland going out on Saturday morning and back on Sunday evening. Interested? Watch this space!)

Plans for WOC

How will the recently-announced IOF plans for future World Orienteering Championships (WOC) affect Ireland? The WOC has evolved over the years since Ireland first took part in 1976: initially it was just an Individual and Relay with all the team running and the event on every second year; in 1979 it changed to odd years so as not to clash with the Olympics; then the World Cup started on the years between WOCs; then qualification races started so that not everyone got a run in the final; then other disciplines were introduced (sprint and middle-distance) and the WOC was run every year.
What's next?
Read aall about the IOF proposals here. Let us know what you think!

Senior Selectors Wanted
Ivan Millar, Director of High Performance Orienteering with IOA, is appealing for people with an interest in international elite competition to come forward to act as selectors for international teams. Contact Ivan at elites@orienteering.ie

That's all for now!

November News

Munster Championships

Yet again a small group of dedicated volunteers put on a good weekend's orienteering against the odds. This time, Andrew Cox and his crew at Waterford Orienteers staged the 2011 Munster Championships amid the elephant and whale-sized (and bigger) boulders of Coumshingaun in the Comeragh Mountains and followed that with a relay in the John F. Kennedy Forest Park in Co. Wexford the next day.

Conditions for Coumshingaun were far from ideal - rain, mist and wind - but that didn't seem to deter winners like Darren Burke (CorkO) in M21 and Ros Hussey (DUO) in W21. Disintegrating bags, dissolving ink and mushy maps may have affected the slower runners more, and the intervention of a local farmer who didn't like the location of one of the controls marred the competition for some, but by and large the runners seemed to have enjoyed the challenge.
Pat O'Connor kept the courses in the open for all except the very first and very last part, with the more technical courses climbing towards the corry lake and its detailed contours and erratic rock features (imagine that at 1:5000 scale or larger!) and for a large part of the courses the runners luckily had the wind and rain at their backs.
Results of the Championships are here.

Monday's relays at JFK were a more casual affair, with teams made up from multiple clubs in a range of age classes. Again, rain provided refreshment and showers at the same time, and the on site café (on its last day of the season) provided hot chocolate and shelter for the prizegiving.
The open men's class was won by the Irish Junior Squad (Cillín Corbett and brothers Jonny and Laurence Quinn) with only seconds to spare over the more seasoned Aonghus OCléirigh, Brian Corbett and Colm Hill. Fingal (Eileen Young, Kathryn Walley and Jean O'Neill) were the only team in the Women's Open class. Results (containing some anomalies due to SportIdent issues) are here.

Connacht Championships

Another small group staging a Championships are Western Eagles - Galway Orienteers who are running the Connacht Championships at the end of this month, on Sunday 27th November.  The event is on flat, open terrain at Oranmore, Co. Galway. The cheapest entry date has just passed, but entries don't close until 18th November. You can enter by post or by e-mailing the entry form and paying the fees electronically to the WEGO account - details are on the entry form.
Entry form and full details of the event are here.

Irish Trail Orienteering Championships

LVO are staging the Irish Trail-O Championships the day before the Connacht Champs, at Hillsborough Forest in Co. Down, on Saturday, November 26th. Hillsborough was mapped for one of the JK Trail-O events last Easter. Start times from 11.00 to 1.00 pm. 
What is Trail-O anyway? It started out as orienteering for the likes of wheelchair users who had to stay on paths but who still wanted a navigational challenge. Anybody can take part and most of the "legs" (if you can call them that) involve choosing which control, of maybe 4 or 5 visible ones, is the one shown on your map. Typically two "legs" are timed as a tie-breaker: the fastest at making the correct choice. No timing is involved on the other legs, where the competitor travels along a path and looks at controls in the terrain (sometimes wuite a distance away). Sounds easy, doesn't it? Don't be misled: the controls may only be a metre apart, and none of them might be in the right place ...
It's a tough mental and navigational workout and planners Wilbert Hollinger and Stephen Gilmore (not Alan Gartside as I had previously thought) will have you begging for mercy at the end. Give it a try! Get all the information you need on Trail-O at www.trailo.org here.

The website for the Irish TrailO Champs at Hillsborough on Saturday 26th November is now available at www.niorienteering.org.uk/trailo.  Come along and test your decision-making skills against Stephen Gilmore's and Wilbert Hollinger's best efforts to distract you.  You can get a taste of Wilbert's planning techniques by undertaking the Pre-O at the LVO Autumn Trophy event in Kilbroney Park on 19th November; the differences between Pre-O and championship Trail-O will be outlined in the debrief.

Alan Gartside

Get ready for winter

Checking you have antifreeze in your car, Yak-Trax for your feet and fuel for your fire are only some of the things you need to do. Orienteers are checking their batteries and sorting out their kit for the start of the night orienteering season.
Lagan Valley Orienteers' Wednesday evening night-O training series starts on November 9th at Ormeau Park in Belfast with a mass start at 7.30 pm. Though aimed primarily at LVO members, they probably wouldn't mind a few interlopers ...
Meanwhile, the annual "Dublin by Night" series starts with Fingal's Howth event on Saturday, December 10th. More about this closer to the time.

Junior Orienteering

Greg McCann (LVO) is stepping down from his coaching position with NIOA after many years encouraging juniors from all over Ireland in the Junior Squad. Greg's IOA counterpart, Ruth Lynam, will also be stepping down after her stint as IOA Junior Affairs Officer at the next IOA AGM. They will both be hard acts to follow. Simon Reeve (FermO) is one of the upcoming coaches in NIOA and he will be working with the Juniors, while NWOC's Allan Bogle will also be taking up a position with NIOA involving coaching development. Allan has been involved for several years in running orienteering training in the Canary Islands, so who knows: a junior training camp there next year, maybe?

The Junior Squad were put through their paces at Glengarra, on the slopes of the Galtee Mountains in Co. Tipperary, in a training day before the recent Munster Chmpionships. Several new faces were notable, particularly with a new wave of girls coming into the squad - that's great to see. Ruth and the other coaches ran training exercises in the forest and on the open mountain, prepared by Brian Corbett, before retiring for chicken curry at the Rathgormack hiking centre.

Plans are afoot for a Junior tour next summer, with families voting on the alternatives of the Welsh 6-Day, Swedish O-Ringen, the OO Cup in Slovenia and the World Championships tour in Switzerland. There may also be a training weekend for JWOC hopefuls before Christmas, and further training at February mid-term and again before March.

Anyone for Venice?

The annual street event in Venice is on next weekend. Read about it here. Irish orienteers have made the trip before - are you going this year? Will you write and tell us about it?
Over 4300 are entered for the event this year. Just because it's urban doesn't make it a sprint: the longest course is Men's Elite at 11.1 km, so the running distance will be about 16 km or more. Entry is still open, by the way, at only €15 for late entries. Details here. There's also a Park-O event the day before.

SHI Results

Few surprises for Ireland in the Senior Home International in south Wales at the beginning of November. Details on the Senior Squad blog here. A cold and windy day on the open mountain for the Individual event saw two of our Swedish-based runners produce the best results: Conor Short 4th M20 and Hugh Cashell 8th M21. Scotland held England to a draw in the individual event with 24 points apiece, but ran ahead in the relays to win by 54 to 46. Wales were comfortably ahead of Ireland on both days, with Ireland only scoring in single figures. Nevertheless, it was a very useful outing for some of our up-and-coming orienteers, running under serious pressure and getting more international experience which will stand to them at Junior World Championships and the like in the future. The final result was Scotland 54 England 46 Wales 28 Ireland 16. See some photos of the event here.

Newstime

If you have any news, please e-mail theirishorienteer@gmail.com

Autumn 2011 Orienteering

Senior Home International

Ireland, England and Scotland travel to Wales this weekend for the annual Senior Home International event. Generally the competition boils down to England v Scotland and Ireland v Wales. This also generated a "Celtic Cup" competition for several years at the suggestion of John Butler, then the Chairman of WOA, where there was a Wales v Ireland match alternating between the two countries, with a flexible scoring system dictated by the composition of the away-team, run separately from the Junior, Senior and Veteran Home Internationals.

The SHI team (careful with your acronyms, folks!) is:

M21
Colm Hill (team captain)
Seamus O'Boyle
Ruairi Short
Hugh Cashel
Darren Burke
Gerard Butler

M20
Kevin O'Boyle
Conor Short
Josh O'Sullivan Hourihan

W21
Olivia Baxter
Rosalind Hussey
Ruth Lynam
Toni O'Donovan
Regina Kelly

W20
Áine McCann
Deirdre Ryan
Niamh Corbett.

The competition involves an individual race on Saturday at Merthyr Common South and a relay on Sunday at Clydach terrace (see previous map here), both near Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales. This part of Wales has an abundance of open limestone areas, often with old mine workings, quarries and other man-made features. When the mist is down, it can be pretty interesting, as many of the features acan be below ground level (depressions and the like).

Provincial Championships

The 2011 Munster Championships is on Sunday October 30th at Coumshingaun, Co. Waterford ("the valley of the ants", if I'm not mistaken). Waterford orienteers are hosting the event on the boulder-strewn slopes of the Comeragh Mountains. Entries close on Friday October 21st. The Irish Junior Squad are having a training weekend in conjunction with the Championships.

Monday 31st sees a Sprint Relay event run by WatO at the John F Kennedy arboretum near New Ross in Co. Wexford - you can enter the day before at the Championships.
Details of the events are here.






Meanwhile, in the West, Western Eagles are working on the Connacht Championships near Oranmore in Co. Galway on November 27th. Cheap entries to 4th November. The terrain is flat, largely open, military lands, originally surveyed by Padraig Higgins in 2002 and updated in 2011. Full details and entry form here.

Twenty Years Ago

Were you orienteering then?
Autumn 1991 saw Issue 54 of The Irish Orienteer, with Orla Cooke taking over from Una May in the Relays at the World Championships in the Czech Republic on the cover. In those pre-internet days, for the latest fixtures information you rang an answering machine which was updated every week. The Senior Home International (in those days for M/W 19, 21 and 35) was about to happen in Wales, with an individual and a score relay (an idea borrowed from FermO). The Junior event was in West Cork.
Marcus Pinker (3rd in H17A in the Scottish 6-Day) reported on his trip to the Junior World Championships in Germany. (Lesson learned: if you carry pots of jam in your rucksack, make sure the lids are on.)
The Swedish O-Ringen featured a new idea called "Trail orienteering" for what we were then allowed to call "disabled" orienteers.
The Shamrock O-Ringen in West Cork was run at the end of June (in previous years it had been around St. Patrick's Day). 179 foreign competitors ran, with 274 Irish: bigger numbers than we see now.
Brendan O'Brien (current IOA Chairman) discovered aerobics; Thomond Orienteers in Limerick staged their annual Burren Walk at the end of August with a sand-dune event at Fanore next day - traditionally the end of summer and the start of the new O-season. National "Try Orienteering Day" was on 29th September with ten come-and-try-it events around the country. Preparations were in train for the only night-O of the season, 3ROC's Phoenix Park event; the Leinster Orienteering Council (remember that?) and the clubs had their own news pages; Ultrasport advertised VJ O-shoes for £45.95 (like running shoes, they must be proportionately cheaper nowadays).
Results included the Leinster Score Championships at Trooperstown (won by Justin May), the 3ROC bike/foot event in Phoenix Park (won by Justin May), and a league event on Three Rock Mountain .
The address list included several clubs no longer with us: Bolton St, ComadO, Crusaders, Eastern Command, Former UCCO, kevin St, Lee Orienteers, Little Killary Orienteers, Lough Key Orienteers, Southern Orienteers, Thomond Orienteers and Trim/South Meath Orienteers.
Read the full stories here.

Thanks to Brian Hollinshead for the scanning and to Aine Joyce for the other features. All old TIO's are now available on the IOA website.

Read about other non-orienteering events from 1991 here.

Good times, good times ...

That's all for now, folks!

October 2011 News

Wales 2 Ireland 0

The Irish Veteran Home International Team followed the lead of our Rugby players rather than our Junior orienteers and bowed to a superior Wales at last weekend's VHI near Aberdeen in Scotland. Wins by Brian Corbett (M50) and third places from Ruth Lynam (W55) and Colm O'Halloran (M45) and 4th for Aonghus OCléirigh (M50) were among  the highlights in an otherwise rather disappointing performance. To take points off the English, Scots and Welsh requires a lot of good results in a race where every second counts.
Saturday's Individual race at Birsemore Hill, near Aboyne, overlooking the River Dee, used an excellent area of runnable forest with a variety of terrain - heathery scattered tree forest with marshes and small hills, contoured rocky steeper forest,  and runnable coniferous forest all featured on the day's menu.
Lessons were learned, though: you need a full team as every finisher counts, and we were deficient in the M35 and M40 departments; you have to take the right map at the start, as it is very costly to return to the start to get the right one later; the EMIT electronic timing system "brikke" which you carry can affect your compass; the team needs to be selected in good time; and you can't check things too often, particularly for a relay ...
The gospel for the day of the Relays (Matthew 22: 1-14 here) could be a metaphor for the Irish team: the  guests were invited to the wedding feast but they didn't come; the servants went out to the highways and byways to gather the halt and the lame to come to the feast, and come they did - but one of them didn't have the approporate wedding garment and was unceremoniously given the bum's rush: the first two featured but even though we didn't all have Irish O-tops, we managed to last the distance. There was plenty of weeping ans gnashing of teeth too ... and many were cold, but few were frozen.
Saturday night's social beside the old railway station in Ballater (where Queen Vicoria arrived by train on 14th May 1869 as it was and is the nearest station to Balmoral) featured Irish music, lots of food, a spellbinding story telling session that had everyone enthralled, and more music and dance and some RouteGadget presentations: the Vets love a night out!
Sunday's Relay at Coull, also near Aboyne, was our last chance at redemption. Complex rules govern the composition of Relay teams and the best teams were assembled (two men and a woman or two women and a man; the man on the women's team and the woman on the man's team must be M or W45, 50 or 55; the total ages of the team must add up to 150 or more, etc ...: if you think it sounds easy, imagine a Rubik's cube with all the runners' names and age classes on it and try twisting and turning it to solve the puzzle!). The leg lengths ranged from about 2.2 to 4.8 km in a superb forest with boulders and contours, printed at 1:7500 (French World Championships' organisers take note!).
Ten, nine, eight, seven ... They're off! Along the path through the ferns beside the lake, up the hill under the power-line; over the ruined wall and the rusty fence (ouch!) into the forest ... Meanwhile, the leg 2 runners wait. And wait. And wait. The Welsh come back in an unbelievable time ... something is wrong: soon it becomes clear - the right people are not running the right legs.
An unfortunate labelling mix-up in the WMW class has jumbled up the running order so people aren't getting their expected leg lengths. Wales run away with three short legs (luckily the Isle of Man don't have a team) and the organisers meet the Team Managers to consider what to do. In the end the result (England winners with 139 points, Scotland 136, Wales 79, Ireland 61) is decided on the Individual race alone. A great pity for the organisers and runners alike, all of whom put a lot of time and effort into the event. The organisers were suitably contrite and the other aspects of the weekend largely made up for the mistake.
Next year's VHI is due to be in Ireland, so let's hope that lightning doesn't strike twice!

The team was: Hazel Thompson, Ann Savage, Eileen Young, Heather Cairns,  Mary O'Connell, Kathryn Walley, Nadine Grant, Ruth Lynam, Barbara Foley-Fisher, Ger Power, Teresa Finlay, Jean O'Neill; Declan McGrellis, Dave Weston, Colm O'Halloran, Brian Corbett, Aonghus OCléirigh, Alan, Cox, John McCullough, Raymond Finlay, Nigel Foley-Fisher, Bernard Creedon. We were missing an M35 and an M40 to complete the line-up.

See the full results and other bits and pieces about the events here.

Blast from the past

Old issues of The Irish Orienteer are now available online on the IOA web site here. It's almost like being able to delve into the Census records ... More on this later!

Home International Time

Ireland Third at JHI!

For the second year in a row the Irish Juniors outran the Welsh to take the Judith Wingham Trophy at the Junior Home International event, held in Gortalughany & Necarne in Fermanagh last weekend.  This is the trophy awarded to the better of Ireland and Wales over the 2 days of the 4-way competition between England, Scotland, Wales & Ireland.

England dominated both relay and individual competitions.  Points after the Individual races (run in conjunction with the Northern Irish Championships) were England 80, Scotland 51, Ireland 44, Wales 41.  Scotland pulled ahead in the Relays but the Irish juniors ran consistently, with some sparkling performances, to increase their lead over Wales.

Results of the Individual competition are here.  As well as plenty of solid results there were four Irish prizewinners - Jack Millar (M18) & Caoimhe O'Boyle (W14) both 2nd in their classes, and Aine McCann & Niamh Corbett 3rd in W18 and W16 respectively.

The juniors had the most demanding conditions, with mist swirling across the moors reducing visibility, but it didn't bother them too much. The mists lifted for the NI Championships, held slightly later in the day. Gortagughany is an open mountain area where limestone meets bog, in the Cuilcagh Mountains on the Fermanagh/Cavan border: a stream in the southern part of the map actually forms the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland, a border which was not evident in the formation of the Irish team. Eoin McCullough was drafted in on Friday afternoon to replace Alex Simonin in M18, and several new faces in the M and W14 classes had very good runs. The girls beat both the Scottish and Welsh girls on Saturday, which was quite an achievement. See the Gortalughany map here.

The relays at Necarne, near Irvinestown, returned to an area first mapped for an earlier JHI. (See the map here). An equestrian centre surrounded by forest, Ciara Largey's courses provided a sprint-O experience through the gardens and buildings before taking in some forest: a major contrast to the sink-holes and burnt heather of Saturday.

More details of the event and the team's results are here.

Well done to all the team:

W18: Áine McCann, Andrea Stefko, Deirdre Ryan, Síomha Callanan

W16: Aoife McCavana, Clíona McCullough, Niamh Corbett, Róisín Long

W14: Caoimhe O'Boyle, Jill Stephens, Meabh Perkins, Siobhán Delaney

M18: Cillín Corbett, Eoin McCullough, Jack Millar, Laurence Quinn

M16: Donal Kearns, Harry Millar, Jonathan Quinn, Shane Hoare

M14: Cathal O'Cléirigh, Paul Pruzina, Peter Meehan, Sandis Rektins

W18: Aine McCann, Andrea Stefko, Deirdre Ryan, Siomha Callanan

W16: Aoife McCavana, Cliona McCullough, Niamh Corbett, Roisin Long

W14: Caoimhe O'Boyle, Jill Stephens, Meabh Perkins, Siobhan Delaney

M18: Alex Simonin, Cillin Corbett, Jack Millar, Laurence Quinn

M16: Donal Kearns, Harry Millar, Jonathan Quinn, Shane Hoare

M14: Cathal O'Cleirigh, Paul Pruzina, Peter Meehan, Sandis Rektins

 Veteran Home International

October 8th/9th sees the Veteran Team travelling to Scotland to try to emulate the Juniors and take some Welsh scalps, just as the irish Rugby team will be trying to do on the other side of the world. The events are stand-alone individual and relays justr for the Vets, ar Birsemore and at Coull, near Aboyne in Aberdeenshire. The rules have changed this year so the team consists of one M and W35, one M and W65 and two each of M/W 40, 45, 50, 55 and 60; twenty four souls in all.

The currently selected team is: Declan McGrellis, Dave Weston, Colm  O'Halloran, Aonghus O'Cleirigh, Brian Corbett, Andrew Cox, John McCullough, Nigel Foley-Fisher, Raymond Finlay, Bernard Creedon; Hazel Thompson, Eileen Young, Anne Savage, Mary O'Connell, Heather Cairns, Nadine Grant, Kathryn Walley, Barbara Foley-Fisher, Ruth Lynam, Ger Power, Teresa Finlay, Jean O'Neill.

A report will follow after the weekend ...

Senior Home International

This event is in south Wales on October 22/23. Several juniors have been brought in to make up the team, so good luck in particular to Aine, Deirdre and Niamh in W20.The selected team is  

M21Colm Hill (Team Captain), Seamus O'Boyle, Ruairi Short, Hugh Cashel, Darren Burke, Gerard Butler

M20  Kevin O'Boyle, Conor Short, Josh O'Sullivan-Hourihan

W21 Olivia Baxter,  Ros Hussey, Ruth Lynam, Toni O'Donovan, Regina Kelly

W18 Aine McCann, Deirdre Ryan, Niamh Corbett.

This proves that orienteering really is a family sport: the team includes four first cousins, and a mother and two sons ...

Upcoming Events

Take note of the changes in the dates of the Ajax come-and-try-it at Marlay Park in Dublin (now on Sunday 9th October) and the 3ROC Leinster Autumn Series event at Carlingford (now on Sunday October 16th).

LVO are running an NI League event on Saturday 15th, the day before Carlingford, at Slieve Garron beside Slieve Croob. This was the part of the map we weren't allowed onto at the JK because of nesting birds, so it will be a new challenge for anyone who goes. (Did you read in the most recent CompassSport about Jon Musgrave being buzzed by a buzzard while out running in Scotland? He (Jon) got a nasty cut on his head from the bird strike).

Remember the Munster Championships at Coumshingaun in the Comeragh Mountains in Co. Waterford on Sunday 30th October (the Bank Holiday weekend) followed by a sprint relay at the JFK Forest Park in Co. Wexford on the Monday, if you're not doing the Dublin Marathon. Details are here.

Frank Ryan has jusrt circulated details of the Connacht Championships on November 27th: see here.

JHI 2011 Ireland Team

W18: Aine McCann, Andrea Stefko, Deirdre Ryan, Siomha Callanan

W16: Aoife McCavana, Cliona McCullough, Niamh Corbett, Roisin Long

W14: Caoimhe O'Boyle, Jill Stephens, Meabh Perkins, Siobhan Delaney

M18: Alex Simonin, Cillin Corbett, Jack Millar, Laurence Quinn

M16: Donal Kearns, Harry Millar, Jonathan Quinn, Shane Hoare

M14: Cathal O'Cleirigh, Paul Pruzina, Peter Meehan, Sandis Rektins

What the Dickens?

Sweeney Todd, Jack the Ripper, Charles Dickens - they'd all have felt at home in last weekend's London City orienteering race. The 4th staging of the event saw more than 1100 orienteers from more than 25 countries running in the heart of the city, down alleyways, across squares and cemeteries, through the quiet Saturday streets of the financial centre of one of the world's great cities.
Don't confuse urban orienteering with sprint orienteering: anyone running the 8.9 km Men's Open class will soon realise the difference. Course lengths were measured as the crow flies, which is fine if you're a crow. Typically the actual length was about 50% longer, depending on your route.
Carlow's Gordon Parker, the course planner, used the multi-level Barbican Estate and Arts Centre as the start and finish area, throwing the runners straight into a confusion of levels, tunnels, ramps and passageways which were difficult to represent on a two-dimensional map. The 1:5000 scale map, however, showed the detail clearly and - given a bit of careful map-reading - allowed the runners to figure it out. (In fact there was a significant Irish input into the race, with Ronan and Julie Cleary the Controllers).
The streets of the financial district were surprisingly quiet and but the hazards still included groups of Japanese tourists craning their necks to see St Paul's Cathedral rather than looking out for orienteers.
Although I have run urban races before, they tend to be short, whether in the JK, the Swiss 6-Day or at night in a Portugese fishing village (that was fun!), but this was unlike any orienteering I had done before. Popping in and out of small alleyways; suddenly emerging beside the Gherkin or St Paul's or some other well-known landmark: there was always something new around the next corner.
There are some different issues in urban orienteering: roadworks and building sites are obvious ones. These are marked on the map in pink, but because they can come and go at short notice, the terrain and the map are in a state of flux right up to the race. Have a look at the map and courses on Routegadget here. The event web site is here.
The best known urban race is probably in Venice in November, but the London race may come a close second. Hamlet without the Prince? Venice without the canals? Because London is comparatively close to Ireland, maybe we overlook it as a destination, but the London City O-race is definitely worth a trip. Ask any of the LVO, Fingal or 3ROC runners who went this year.
Next year's London City race is on 22nd September, followed the next day by the Southern Championships.

Super Sprint

Many of the runners who did the London City race stayed on to run an "Orient-Show" style sprint race the next day in Regent's Park. The LOK Ultra Sprint Challenge format was three races of about 1 km which all the runners did. The times of these three races were added together and the fastest 4 runners in each class (Junior Boys, Veteran men etc) were set off together in the final a while later. These would finish 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the competition. The slower runners then started at 15 or 20 second intervals in groups of four and they would then finish 5th, 6th etc. The courses were gaffled to reduce following (i.e. broken into separate segments which runners took in a different order). It took a lot of work with planning and organisation, not to mention getting all the SportIdent details right, but it provided a fast, fun event for the competitors.
The courses included two sections in man-made mazes, visible to the spectators. The total area was only about 200 m x 300 m and it all fitted on a 1:1000 scale map with 1 metre contours on an A4 page.
The navigation was tricky (there were no control descriptions or control codes except for the juniors) and the precise control locations were shown by a small dot in the centre of the control circle. Some controls were within about 1 metre of each other, so you had to be careful you visited the right one and that you took them in the right sequence.
Mispunching did not mean disqualification, but you got a 30 second time penalty added on to your running time for each wrong control. Given that there were about 25 controls on each 1 km course, that could be a lot of penalties!
Fingal brother and sister Sandis Rektins and Zanda Rektina won the Junior Boys and Junior Girls races.
Here is the map for the final 1.4 km race. (You may notice a small enlarged area in the SE corner of the map, showing the maze at a larger scale. That's the kind of thing you only notice when you look at the map after you get home ...!)