July 2012/2

EYOC 2012 – Some reflections - Mike Long, IOA Juniors Officer.

Together with six of our juniors and Ruth Lynam, I had the pleasure of attending the recent European Youth Orienteering Championships competition which was held near Limoges in mid western France. It was my first time attending such a competition and some reflections on the Irish performance follow. We arrived on a Monday with the opening sprint due on the Friday. The three days we had for training were invaluable (maybe essential?) Using a combination of the organiser’s model events and exercises designed by Ruth we focused mostly on training for the long distance event which used a 1:15,000 map and on the 1:4000 sprint maps around classical French villages.

Long course map

The 1:15000 maps were on complex forest terrain with some rock features and were very different from the WOC 2011 maps. Good use was made of two nearby lakes for recuperation.

At Friday’s sprint, through the streets of Meymac, and cheered on by the local Irish, we had some very strong results:

M16 (2.0 km, 85 starters)

1^st. Adrien Delenne, Fra, 11:36

15^th Jonathan Quinn, Irl, 12:32

M16 sprint map

W16 (1.7 km, 85 starters)

1^st. Angelika Maciejewska, Pol, 11:36

29^th Roisin Long, Irl, 13:23

54^th Aoife Mc Cavana, Irl, 14:41

W18 (1.8 km, 82 starters)

1^st. Ekateria Savkina, Rus, 11:47

56^th. Niamh Corbett,  Irl, 14:33

M18 (2.2 km, 96 starters)

1^st. Tristan Blomen, Bel, 12:36

59^th Jack Millar, Irl, 14:40

68^th Eoin McCullough, Irl, 15:11

Jonathan on the Long course

These good results have to be taken in the perspective that we have very few (one?) ISSOM sprint standard maps for the whole country. This is something we need to address given that sprint is now a permanent fixture of JK, EYOC, JWOC, WOC etc. The coaches’ race followed and included a mass start to a control at 50 m. Suffice it to say I was a little way behind the British sprint champion Chris Smithers who won the race, but I was not last!

The long distance event featured tough courses both physically and technically and included some long legs across terrain with few path route options  (in other words the courses were well planned). Again I feel we had some very good results:

M16 (6.4 km, 85 starters)

1^st. Mikkel Annen, Den, 45:04

39^th Jonathan Quinn, Irl, 62:38

W16 (4.7 km, 85 starters)

1^st. Angelika Maciejewska, Pol, 37:23

37^th Roisin Long, Irl, 51:54

78^th Aoife Mc Cavana, Irl, 76:00

W18 (5.3 km, 83 starters)

1^st. Viktoria Sukharevska, Ukr, 45:59

74^th. Niamh Corbett,  Irl, 77:52

M18 (7.6 km, 96 starters)

1^st. Marek Minar, Cze,53:53

58^th Jack Millar, Irl, 69:00

63^rd Eoin McCullough, Irl, 71:53

Aoife takes her map at the Relay

I realise this involves lots of extrapolation but in JWOC terms this means we would be on the cusp of two JWOC A finals with several not too far behind. How can we improve? In my view we need to train more on forest terrain and we need to focus on long distance route choices. Have we the maps to do this? If not can we generate some? The senior squad long-O events next spring could be very valuable for this purpose.

The EYOC party followed. The coaches’ banquet ended at 22:00 at which point we were summarily dismissed with the party in full swing. For full details ask the  juniors ... I guess it was all summed up the next morning by a quote by a well known W16 who said while dragging herself from the car “How come we can’t be into something like bird watching?”

Jack at the Sprint

Sunday’s relay was on 1:10:000 maps, with the first half on runnable beech forest and the second shorter loop on low visibility light green terrain. This area posed lots of problems and positions changed dramatically in here, none more so than for the UK M16’s who had led all the way to the last spectator control but ended up 7^th due to mistakes here. For the first time ever Ireland’s entry featured two full teams at M18 and W18 (including the three 16’s). Jack produced a storming finish to come in 10^th place (of 29 teams) just ahead of the UK. Roisin was 16^th (of 23). The girls continued to be solid and finished 18^th but only 3 seconds off 16^th. Unfortunately Eoin confused two adjacent controls labelled 60 and 80 in the dark green area and Ireland were one of 10 teams to record a disqualification.

Personally I feel that overall Ireland performed very well and it augurs well for the future. I was also proud and impressed at the overall attitude and conduct of the juniors to the tasks in hand. They also did not seem to have too much trouble enjoying themselves! 

(For results, Routegadget etc, see here: Sprint, Long, Relay.)

Some photos of the Irish team from the EYOC website: click on a photo to enlarge it:

Eoin - Relay

Eoin - Sprint

Jack - Relay

Jonathan - Long

Jonathan - Long

Jonathan - Relay

Jonathan - Relay

Niamh - Long

Niamh waits to start the Aprint

Róisín - Sprint

Róisín - Relay

July 2012/1

World Championships Team Announced

The following have been selected to represent Ireland at WOC 2012 in

Switzerland:

Ciara Largey, Rosalind Hussey, Darren Burke, Nicolas Simonin, Ruairi Short, Colm Hill, Hugh Cashell and David Healy.

Congratulations to the athletes on their selection, and thank you to the Selectors for their work. The team can be followed on Facebook , Twitter (Irish_O_Squad), and on the Squad webpage.

Ros and Ruairi also form the Irish team for the World Student Championships at Alicante in Spain in the first week of July.

- Darren Burke Director of High Performance Orienteering

Ireland at EYOC
Results are filtering through from France where the Irish team of Aoife McCavana, Róisín Long, Niamh Corbett, Jonathan Quinn, Eoin McCullough and Jack Millar are taking on Europe's best Junior orienteers.
Jonny scored a magnificent 15th place in M16 in the Sprint race at Meymac on Friday, and on Saturday the best result was Róisín Long's 37th in W16. See results, maps etc here.
Thierry Gueorgiou had his first big victory in EYOC back in 1995 – this was the first time the orienteering world got a real look at this exceptional orienteer.
"As I now look back, my victory in the EYOC 95 was the real start of my orienteering career and therefore always had a special taste, Gueorgiou says. -That’s also why I have much respect for this competition which gives the first big emotions to young orienteers."
Looking at the results it is clear that none of the team will be pleased with their runs, except for the two mentioned above, but there'e still the Relay to run on Sunday. Watch this space for an update ...
(Update 1st July: The W18 girls finished in 18th place with a storming 3rd leg from Niamh Corbett, but finishing a tantalizing 5 seconds earlier would have moved them up two places. The M18's had two solid runs from Jack and Jonny but an unfortunate error in reading a control code on leg 3 caused the team to join the other teams who mispunched -  10 teams disqualified, including our nearest neighbours, Great Britain, and only 19 teams finished.).
The next EYOC will be in Israel in November 2013.

Jukola 2012

Jukola starts: 10.30 pm

A thunderclap, a flash of light and the dam bursts: a river of fire floods out from the field towards the forest: the 64th Jukola relay has started.

The thunderclap was a Finnish Army tank used as a starting pistol for the 1500 teams running into the Nordic twilight. It is 10.30 on a June Saturday night and we are in Vantaa, 10 km from Helsinki Airport. Teams have come together from all over Europe and from further afield to take part in the world's biggest orienteering relay. The organisers expect some fifty thousand people at the event over the weekend – between teams, spectators, families and supporters.

A few Irish runners are involved: Nick Simonin, running for his Swedish club Lidingo, placed 40^th , Colm Moran and Conor Short running for their Swedish club OK Tisaren (132nd), Niamh O'Boyle, Julie Cleary running the Venla for London OK, and myself and Ronan Cleary also running for London OK.

Venla starts 2 pm

The orienteering kicked off with the women's 4-leg “Venla” on a baking Saturday afternoon: a small affair of only 1272 teams sent out to make tracks in the forest for the men later (Not really! It's a very serious and hotly contested race). The legs of the Venla range from 5.7 to 8.5 km. The runners were going out in 31 degrees at 2 pm , but later in the day things cooled for better running conditions. (Unfortunately the weather changed for later runners in the Jukola on Sunday morning, with heavy rain and 13C).

Kalevan Rasti finish

This year's Jukola was the biggest ever: 1689 teams of seven. The competition centre was based at a sports centre with a running track, sports pitches, swimming pool and outdoor skating rink. All the facilities were close together: food, assembly, toilets, the field of army tents for the teams. Only the showers and sauna were a bit out of the way.

I was a member of a loosely assembled London OK team consisting of three Finns, two Irish and two English runners. We have had much the same group running at Jukola for several years – I think this was my 7^th outing – and there was the usual jockeying for who runs which leg, or maybe who doesn't run which leg!. This year, fitness and injuries played their part in determining who ran what. The first leg, the “river of fire” mass start, is probably the defining leg of the Jukola, where you get swept along in the flood through the night for 12.8 km. The first three legs (12.8, 12.7 and 14.1 km) are largely night legs (at least for the faster teams), then the 7.8, 8.1 and 10.3 km legs in dawn and daylight and the final 15.5 km leg to the finish, making 80 km in total. None of us wanted to do the last leg, but Ronan decided that the buck stopped with him and took it on.

Bear Rock?
Before the Venla started the announcer warned the runners that there was an out of bounds area used by hunters (archers, actually) with life-size elk, boar, bears and wolves as targets: don't be frightened if you see them. He repeated the warning for the Jukola runners: could be unnerving at night. In a departure from the norm (reportedly to improve TV coverage), the mass start maps were not strung on wires above the heads of the runners, but put on the ground at their feet.

Evening. Time to plan. Eat about 6 pm (the food is good, about €8 for a main course with bread and a drink. Take your plate and eat on tables in the open air). Go to the orienteering shops and sports supermarket (they usually have good value in sleeping bags and other bits and pieces). A huge selection of O-gear, shoes, headlamps (from €10 to €800) and anything you can think of. Except bananas: for some reason there was no supermarket this year and you couldn't get a banana, the staple food of the distance athlete, for love or money. And this year the usual betting office, where you could bet on who would win the race, seemed absent too.

8 pm: time for the first leg runners to eat. Join the queue. There's obviously a problem – they have run out of food and they won't have any for another hour! Disbelief. Go to look for a grill selling something: at last, pytt y panna (fried potatoes with bacon – a lifesaver). Later, the food arrives for the restaurant proper and calm is restored.

Jussi ran the first leg, doing the predicted 2 hours 22 mins, then David Rosen took over. He had predicted 2.5 hours but finally came back in 3 hours. His headlight had given up and he had to use his back-up light just to read the map.

Pasi, another Finn, ran the third night leg in 2 hours 33, just 3 minutes longer than his prediction. We were now nearly 8 hours into the race. (I never met Pasi: he lives close to the event so he came from home, ran, and went home again.) At this stage we were running a good bit behind schedule: I had anticipated running the 5^th leg at about 06.30 so I set my alarm in the tent for 05.45 (03.45 Irish time). We were able to check how our team was doing on the internet by phone, so I realised I wouldn't have to run until about 8 am so I turned over and tried to sleep. The PA system came to life again around 5 a.m., though, to announce the progress of the winning teams (expected to finish about 06.30) so sleep was impossible.

After a coffee, a doughnut and a bowl of porridge I was ready to run. Through the EMIT card check, scan my race number bar code (“John?” Yes. “Go ahead”). Into the start field. Over to the computer station, put the EMIT card on the card reader to bring up my team's position: I can see how David Saunders is doing at the radio controls so I know when to expect him.

David runs in, punches the finish, gives in his map in and runs around the U-shaped loop, takes my map for me and runs over to the changeover section for teams 1000-1200. “Any advice?” “Enjoy it. Just orienteer!”

Finished!

I run out with a Finnish runner. He says something to me which I don't understand (My Finnish is limited to essentials like “Airport”, “Porridge” and “Thank you”). He then explains in English that I should check I have the right map. Two of the top Finnish women's teams in Saturday's Venla were disqualified for taking the wrong maps. Conditions are perfect: dry, bright and cool.

The run to the start control was an incredible 1050 metres: across fields, up a hill through the forest (through a swathe of felling just for the event), down and across another field and up the hill to the triangle. It took me 7 minutes. Now the map – 10,000 scale, very clear: lots of hills, a few paths, lots of marsh and bare rock. The first control – a knoll – the key to the course and the most important control. Make sure you get it right. Round the side of the hill, across the marsh (feet wet and muddy already), keep the bare rock on your left: must be around here – there are some people about 10 metres to my right: that's it, control 151. Excellent.

Now, take the small path – keep it simple – across the bare rock to the track, check where the first aid post is, down the spur to the 2.5 metre boulder. OK. Keep going: 3, 4, drinks station, 5 a knoll on the bare rock – visible from 20 metres. 6, 7 OK. - a longish leg to 8 across track – hill – marsh - hill -track. Through the green and up the hill – semi-open forest, a big boulder, a knoll: OK. I hear a cuckoo – much later than in Ireland. 9 along the low ground between the rocky hills, 10 down the steep hill and around the lake (left or right? Left looks slightly shorter and right has some out of bounds: go left). Pass some bemused fishermen, along some slippery wooden planks (should I have worn dobb spike shoes?)

Across the open marsh to 10? Forget it – too deep looking. Everglades. Around the path and across the crags. OK. 11: follow the path for a bit then over the hill – count the spurs. Along the top and drop down to the crag off the round hill with bare rock. OK. 12: across the reentrant and over the hill. Getting close to the end now – keep moving. 13 down the steep hill to the edge of the field, then a marked route for 390 metres. I see crowds of runners coming towards me on the outbound marked route – it's the mass start at 09.15 for the remaining runners. The remaining 7^th leg runners had already gone at 09.00. Keep an eye out for our 6^th leg runner,Olli, but it's just a blur of hundreds of people running towards me.

Into the last section: four controls plus the run-in. 14 OK, 15 easy – a bridge in an open field. A mistake going to 16 – should have run around the hill, not over the top, but no matter. 17 down to a boulder through the long grass – a path already made by earlier runners, then down the hill, over the bridge and down the finish chute into the leg 1-3-5 lane. Punch the finish, stop the watch, hand in the map, get a drink. 92 minutes for 8.2 km/345 metres climb. Slow enough, though: team in 1154^th place -  I gained 92 places. Happy with that, considering my fitness. No real mistakes. Big opportunities for time loss if you lose contact with the map here. My approach was to go for a run with a map, keep in contact and keep moving. It worked well, although the knees had not recovered from the Wicklow Way relay 3 weeks before.

Back to the tent. Get some food and drink. Then the rain came and the temperature dropped to 13 degrees. Heavier rain. Olli comes in from leg 6, a drowned rat. 1.57 as against a prediction of 2.00. He gained a further 47 places.

Now to wait for Leg 7, Ronan. The condition he imposed for running the final leg was that we be there at the finish for him. A good idea when the weather was sunny, but not so attractive in the cold and wet. So we stood in the rain and waited. Check the radio control times – should be in soon. Runners of all shapes and sizes coming in, looking at the last control, run down to it and – whoosh! - slide down the slippery slope on their backsides. An undignified approach to the last control. Groups of other runners play follow-the-leader: brain dead, they puzzle ov the last controls after visiting the leg 7 one only to realise (a) that it's not theirs and (b) they haven't a clue where they are because they switched off approaching the finish.

Ronan runs in, a marathon time of 3.15 brings us in to 1108^th in a time of 16 hours 17 minutes. The PA plays "Rawhide" (except the "Rollin', Rollin; Rollin' ... " sounded like "Ronan, Ronan, Ronan ..." ) The words of the song seemed strangely appropriate, even if he wasn't playing it just for us:

Rollin', rollin', rollin'
Though the streams are swollen
Keep them dogies rollin'
Rawhide!
Rain and wind and weather
Hell-bent for leather
Wishin' my gal was by my side.
All the things I'm missin',
Good vittels, love, and kissin',
Are waiting at the end of my ride

The rain struck when he was half way around but he kept moving forward to the end.

At the front end of the competition, Finland's Kalavan Rasti had 8 minutes to spare over Swedish club Malungs OK so Kalevan Rasti will run next year as team number 1. Last year's winners, Halden from Norway, finished 3^rd, a further 4 minutes down. Halden took first place in the Venla, race, with Finlands Paimion Rasti second and Denmark's OK Pan third.

Some of us decided that it would be our last Jukola: the legs on the course aren't getting any shorter and none of us is getting any younger (don't ask the average age of the team!).

But then, look at the shapes, sizes and ages of the runners coming in. Look at the hundreds of teams behind us.
See the Jukola web site here for results, photos, routegadget etc. If you're not there you can follow it live on the internet. Jukola party, anyone?
Look at next year's Jukola in Jamsa. Two and a half hours drive north of Helsinki. One and a half from Tampere. Will Ryanair still fly there next June? How about Norwegian or SAS? Sandwiched in the middle of the Leaving Cert before Chemistry and Economics? Hmmmm....

Colin Henderson braves the elements

Running Shorts
Ireland finished behind Wales in the Veteran Home International in the Mournes on July 16/17th. It's a foregone conclusion that England and Scotland will be out of reach, but there can be intense competition between the two smallest orienteering nations. Despite the men leading Wales by 39 to 38 overnight, the ladies didn't fare so well and the relays on Sunday were a downward spiral where Wales extended their lead to finish with 149 points to 117. Meanwhile, England extended their overnight lead to beat Scotland by 258 to 220.
Conditions in the Mournes on Saturday were trying, with heavy rain and swollen streams but Sunday's relays at Tollymore were run in better weather. Photos, results and information can be found here.
Traditionally the VHI has been held in October or November, typically on exposed open mountain areas in far from perfect weather. Running the event in June seemed like a good idea, I'm sure, but it did have the side effect of moving November's weather forward 5 months ...

Setanta Rogaine Report
Setanta Orienteers' ran their 15th Rogaine in Wicklow on June 23/24. Not too many orienteers were running this year, but you can see the results here. This year the 24-hour competition started at 2 pm on Saturday and the 6-hour at 8 am on Sunday, so they would both finish together. Stephen and Timothy Martin (Dark Peak Fell Runners, UK) won the 24 hour and Steven Linton (NWOC) won the 6-hour.
The start was near Glashaboy, in the Wicklow Gap area, but many of the controls were much further north, meaning that a return to base for food, rest and shelter wasn't such an attractive option this year.

Gear Up for Autumn
Check out the 3ROC "Get lost in the Park" series of four Tuesday evening events in Dublin's Phoenix Park in August (7th, 14th, 21st, 28th) or Fingal's Scatter series on the first four Sundays in September starting with a new map of DCU/Albert College on September 2nd. Fixtures information is back on the IOA web site.




Summer Summary

If you're orienteering over the summer, why don't you write about your experiences for TIO? The hours are long, the pay is lousy, but we'd all love to read about it! E-mail theirishorienteer@gmail.com
July features the World Masters Orienteering Championships in the Harz Mountains in Germany (scene of WOC 85), the Welsh 6-Day Croeso 2012, and the World Student O-Championships at Alicante in Spain. Anyone on to report on these?

Wedding Bells Congratulations to CorkO's Ailbhe Creedon and Rob O'Sullivan who got married in mid-June at Glandore.

June 2012/2

Irish 3-Day, Co. Galway

Neil Dobbs, M21L winner

Neil Dobbs (WatO/HVO), home from America, took the M21L class at the Irish Three Day in Galway on the Bank Holiday weekend, with Ruth Lynam (CNOC) taking the W21L title. Three testing open mountain areas south of Oughterard provided the terrain and the weather provided an additional challenge. After a week basking in the sun, the weather gods took their revenge on the Saturday evening and Sunday, with swollen streams, low visibility and uncertainty about what to wear.
The short courses at Sruth an Iolra on Saturday evening needed concentration to relate the map to the terrain, particularly in the boulder department, where the features seemed to me to be shown rather selectively. Some controls were visible from afar, which reduced the challenge, but the event was a good warm up for the classic race on Sunday.

Tired but happy?

Sunday's race, planned by Martin Flynn, on a 1:7500 scale map, was a step up from the day before: navigation from start to finish, with long legs traversing the area, and an excellent area (reminiscent of open Welsh or Fermanagh limestone hillsides with sink holes and rock features) certainly challenged the runners: lots of finishers coming in with a rueful shake of the head, as much as to say "if only I'd been more careful!".
The weather picked up for Monday, back at 1:10000 on an extended version of the Day 1 map, where Neil and Ruth came through to win in the chasing start. Well done to WEGO to run the event: I counted only about 7 officials in all, between mappers, planners, controllers, organisers and helpers.

Paul Smyth & Marcus Geoghegan sprint for the line.

Running these events must have seemed a doddle this year- after all, the area is only maybe 30 km from Galway and not on an island (like Inishbofin) or three hours drive away (like Lough Eske in Donegal, where they ran the event in 2010).  The organisers had three new maps on waterproof paper, they bussed runners from Oughterard to the event as there was no parking at the area, and had prizes for the winners,  all for a lot less than the cost of an IOC entry. Frank Ryan and WEGO are set to run the 2013 Irish Championships near Lough Eske at the beginning of May. It should be good!
Results are here. Routegadget is on the IOA web site here. Photos by Roger Duff are here. (PS Thanks to the good Samaritan who rescued my running shoes from the event car park after I drove away on Saturday evening!)

Senior Selection

Still no news as we go to press (as they used to say) of the World Championships team selection. The selection races were held at the Jubilee 5 events in Scotland which took many Elites away from the 3-Day in Galway. Nick Simonin and Roz Hussey were the fastest two Irish in both the Sprint and the Long races (Nick finishing 2nd overall in the Sprint). And the Long was long: 15.4 km with 650 metres climb for the men, with a winning time of 98 minutes. Ciara Largey and Nick were the best in the Middle Distance.
Controversy surrounded the Sprint race where a zig-zag final few controls and a thick purple line on the map lured some competitors into running from control 22 to 25 and to the finish (see the map section on the Senior Squad blog here). Some competitors finished, then realised, and went back out to get the controls in the right order. This is apparently allowed under BOF rules as long as you haven't downloaded, but it is not allowed under IOF rules.
See all the details, results and routes here.

VHI Selection: W40 needed!

The Irish team for the Veteran Home International team to take on England, Scotland and (especially) Wales on June 16/17 in the Mournes has been announced. This event has traditionally been in October or November on the bleakest, most windswept areas, so maybe it will be a change for the better to have ferns, ticks and midges instead! The events at Tollymore and Meelmore are tied in with LVO's O-Festival and there's a street event on a new map of Newcastle on Friday evening, a barbecue and a lovely meadow to camp in at Tollymore
The team is:

Class                                        M                                             W

35                    Marcus Pinker                                      Denise O’Hagan

40                    Angus Tyner                                         Pauline O’Hara

                        Declan McGrellis                                  Vacant – volunteer needed

45                    Ingus Rektins                                        Heather Cairns

                        Steven Linton                                       Ruth Lynam

50                    Colm O’Halloran                                  Mary O’Connell

                        Aonghus O’Cleirigh                              Bernie O’Boyle

55                    Val Jones                                             Anne Savage

                        Andrew Cox                                        Helen Baxter

60                    Colin Henderson                                   Barbara Foley-Fisher

                        Nigel Foley-Fisher                                Aine Ui Shuilleabhain

65                    Richard McCourt                                 Jean O’Neill

Team Manager:            Helen Baxter

Summer Series ends

The CNOC summer series ends on Tuesday 19th June with the barbecue at Hollywood, Co. Wicklow and a score event beside the village. Details on the IOA web site. However, you can still pick up some summer and autumn events locally: 3ROC are running four Tuesday evening events in Dublin's Phoenix Park in August (7th, 14th, 21st and 28th), and Fingal's now established "Scatter" series is on four Sundays in September.

Down Wicklow Way ...

Apart from being the home of much Leinster orienteering, County Wicklow plays host to a number of other similar activities. Coming up is the 15th Setanta Rogaine on June 23/24, with a 6 hour event starting at 8 am on Sunday and a 24 hour event at 2 pm on Saturday. Both races use the Harvey's Wicklow map. Details here.

Wicklow Way Relay - Runners from CorkO, Ajax, Setanta, Fingal and other orienteering clubs took on athletics clubs and adventure racers in the IMRA Wicklow Way Relay on 26th May. The race, from Marlay Park in Dublin to Shillelagh in south Wicklow, covers 127 km of forest and mountain trails. It was a perfect day for the run, warm, dry and sunny with a pleasant breeze,  and Rathfarnham emerged the clear winners in a time of 7 hours 9 minutes 52 seconds, with a close finish for 2nd and 3rd (8.02.25 and 8.02.57). Full results here. The top orienteering team was "CorkO & Co" in 6th place in 8.31.29.

Wicklow Round - Fermanagh Orienteers' Billy Reed, running with Greg Byrne and Finbar McGurren, completed the Wicklow Round on the June Bank Holiday weekend in 20 hours 56 minutes on his first attempt. This is a truly outstanding achievement, writes Gordon Stephens - the Wicklow Round is the Irish equivalent of the Bob Graham round in the Lake district: 26 peaks, more than 100 km with 6000 metres climb in under 24 hours. See the IMRA web site here for background info.

Mourne Way Marathon

Several LVO members took part in the Mourne Way Marathon on 9th June. A number of members ran the half marathon, full marathon or the ultra marathon ( 2 x marathons) round the Mournes. See here  for details and (maybe even) results.  Greg mcCann, well known in Junior coaching circles, was scheduled to run the ultra marathon ...

Jukola 2012

Several Irish orienteers will be running in Finland's Jukola overnight relay on 16th/17th June. The biggest Jukola ever has attracted 1654 seven-person teams for the Jukola relay and 1245 four-person teams for the Women's Venla Relay which precedes it: that's a staggering 16,500 or so runners! The competition is at Vantaa, outside Helsinki, only 10 km from the airport. Watch it live through the night on the Jukola web site here.

Running Shorts

Belfast will host the next World Police and Fire Games from 1 - 10 August 2013,  attracting 25,000 visitors from over 70 countries.
This will include an estimated 10,000 competitors competing in around 65 sports, plus 15,000 friends and family.  Currently the programme includes cross country running, mountain running, track and field, a stair race (!) and, yes, orienteering!
The Games represent an amazing opportunity to raise Belfast’s profile internationally and leave a lasting legacy for Northern Ireland. It is estimated that it will inject at least £15.5m into the local economy. Details here.

What's in a name (1)? Two events on the same day at different "Curraghs"? The IOA Fixtures List has two events on June 13th, one at Curragh Wood, Midleton, Co. Cork and one at Curragh East, Co. Kildare.This brings to mind the story of the family in the UK navigating to an O-event using grid references but unable to find it. In desperation they checked all their details and found thay had been navigating to the organiser's telephone number!
What's in a name (2) Some of the areas we use for orienteering have beautiful names, particularly in Irish. I was taken with the recent Galway 3-Day areas, but when I was at school "Sruth an Iolra" would have meant "Stream of the Plural", not the "Stream of the Eagle" ...
25 Years ago ... the CISM World Military Orienteering Championships were held in Ireland. Pat Healy and his crew made new maps in Wicklow, or amalgamated and updated existing maps, to make the CISM maps around Glendalough, Cronybyrne and Devil's Glen: these maps then led to the ill-fated 1988 Continental Cup being run here (none of the "Continental" teams took part). In a sign of the times, the CISM Orienteering Championships were on in Denmark this month but no Irish army team took part - presumably due to government cutbacks.
(A story from CISM 1987, possibly apocryphal: A Scandinavian runner falls and injures his arm. The Army ambulance comes to take him for treatment and the paramedics decide the arm should be splinted, but there is no suitable splint available. What to do? The paramedic sees a machete in the ambulance and gets ready to use it. The runner sees this and pales as he says "Surely that is too drastic? It is only fractured...".)

Finally, if you're going to any interesting events over the summer, please write about them for TIO!

June 2012/1

Orienteering in the Olympics?

Maybe this is as close as we will get to orienteering in the Olympics for the foreseeable future, but congratulations to Fingal's Fiach O'Rourke who was an Olympic Torch Bearer on 28th May in Wales. Fiach, a student at Bangor University, represented Ireland as a Junior at orienteering and has brought orienteering back to life in Bangor University, as well as badminton and squash. (The previous O-club, Bangor Backwoodsmen, must have folded?).
You can read Fiach's nomination here. (Thanks to Marcus Geoghegan for noticing this!).

Irish 3-Day

The June Bank Holiday weekend will see three new maps near Oughterard in Co. Galway used for the first time by Western Eagles Galway Orienteers. The word is - keep in contact with the map! Intricate open hillside on three adjacent areas, mapped by Pádraig Higgins and with courses planned by Ed Niland, Martin Flynn and Paul Dunne should set good challenges to the 160-odd orienteers entered. Unfortunately the Irish World Championships team selection races are in Scotland at the same time, so most of the Elites are missing. Lots of potential UK orienteers have also been lured away by several very promising events in Scotland over the weekend.
Saturday sees short courses with starts from 4 pm, Sunday will have classic distance courses (the M21L is  9.6 km with 300 metres climb) and Monday will have slightly shorter courses with a chasing start.
Several regular visitors will be back again, with the locals who decided to give the Irish Champs a miss. Runners from the UK, USA, Sweden, Ukraine and Switzerland will add to the local colour
Details of the event are here.
Somewhat confusingly, the pre-event information says "All rock features are not mapped". Mmm ...

New IOA Chair
Mary O'Connell, former IOA Treasurer, has been co-opted onto the Executive as the new Chairman. At the AGM in Castlegregory the call was put out looking for a replacement for Brendan O'Brien, who had served the maximum three years, and Mary responded. Having been on the Executive before is a very useful attribute for an incoming Chairman. 
Mary (3ROC) is a familiar face at events around the country and abroad. Her son, Colm Moran, is  coming towards the end of a year training in Sweden and was selected for the JWOC team for Slovakia. (Of course I have to mention that up-and-coming junior, daughter Clodagh Moran here too!) Best wishes, Mary, on your ratification!
 

Junior International Teams

Congratulations to the members of the two Irish Junior teams travelling abroad this summer: the European Youth O-Championships in Correze in France are at the end of June (see here for details) and the Junior World Championships are in Slovakia at the beginning of July (see here).

The EYOC team is: W16 Róisín Long (AJAX), Aoife McCavana (GEN); W18 Niamh Corbett (CorkO); M16 Jonathan Quinn (GEN), M18 Eoin McCullough (3ROC), Jack Millar (LVO).
Team leaders: Mike Long, Ruth Lynam.

The JWOC team is:  W20 Aine McCann (LVO), M20 Colm Moran (3ROC), Conor Short (CNOC), Josh O'Sullivan-Hourihan (BOC). Team leader: Greg McCann.
Preliminary entries have been received from 38 countries so far.

Junior Tour

The Irish Junior Squad tour is travelling to the Welsh 6-Day, Croeso 2012, in Aberystwyth from July 22-28. 1700 entries have so far been reveived for the event, which will feature Welsh open hillsides, forest and urban orienteering. Entries are still open and you can get details here.

European Championships

The Irish team at the European Championships at Falun in Sweden in May got some good preparation for July's World Championships in Switzerland, running all the disciplines (Sprint, middle, classic and relay) in varied continental terrain against top class opposition. The team was Roz Hussey (DUO), Niamh O'Boyle (CNOC), Nick Simonin (BOC), Dave Healy (GEN) and Hugh Cashell (CNOC), with all except Roz now Swedish-based. Both Nick and Roz qualified for the Sprint final. You can all read all about the week here.
Gerard Butler (3ROC) had to withdraw from the team following the death of his mother. Our sympathies go to Gerard and to his father, Michael, on the death of Toni.

World Championships

Follow the Irish Team as they prepare for the World Championships in Switzerland in July here and here. The WOC web site is here. The selection races are in Scotland at the beginning of June.

The Tollymore Festival of Orienteering - June 15-17, Co. Down.

Details of this 3 day event are now available here and entries can be made at Fabian.co.uk here.
The weekend includes the Veteran Home International with camping available in Tollymore on the Friday and Saturday nights and a barbecue on the Saturday night.
Please note that this is a pre-entry event with entries and bookings closing on Sunday 10 June.
Harold White, Event Coordinator
(The Veteran Home International team selection is still to be announced).

Summer O-Series-es

There are several series of local events on over the summer: in Leinster the CNOC Tuesday evenings continue until June 19th in Hollywood; CorkO's summer series continue on Tuesday evenings until James's Fort on July 17th; the North Cork Orienteers events are on Wednesday evenings until 27th June at Ballyhass Lakes; LVO's WEE (Wednesday Evening Events) series run until 29th August at Stormont; NWOC's ThEE (Thursday ... you get the picture!) events run until 14th June at Downhill and Fermanagh are finishing up their TES (yes, you've guessed it!) events on Tuesday 5th June at Florencecourt.
Details of these events are in the fixtures section of the IOA and NIOA web sites.

Watch out too for a series of 3ROC events in Dublin's Phoenix Park on Tuesdays in August and Fingal's Scatter event series in North Co. Dublin in September.

And, for a family day out, there's the Athletics Ireland Family Fun Day at Farmleigh, beside the Phoenix Park on Sunday July 1st, featuring basic orienteering as well as lots of other activities. Details here.

Finally, Good Luck to all our orienteers doing school and college exams around now: they'll be over before you know it, then off to EYOC, JWOC, Wales, O-Ringen, Austria, Norway ...

May 2012/2

Irish Championships

Mt. Brandon from the Relays

Excellent areas, excellent maps, worthy Champions - these could summarise Bishopstown OC's Irish Championships last weekend in Kerry's sand dunes.
Marcus Pinker retained his Men's title in the Classic race at Inch, while late entry Maeve O'Grady's (DFO) years of training and competition paid off when she took the W21 Elite title. See the classic race results here. In the middle distance event the day before at Castlegregory, Darren Burke took the trophy (his first Senior title), relegating Marcus to second, while Ros Hussey had a comfortable win in W21E. Full results here.
In an exciting finish to the Relays, Cork O's Marcus Pinker gained minutes on third leg leader Colm Hill (CNOC) to win the Men's race while late entries CNOC comfortably took the Women's race with junior Caoimhe O'Boyle joining veterans Eileen Loughman and Ruth Lynam on the rostrum. Relay results will be here.

Terry, Darren, Marcus, Brian

It was an enjoyable weekend's orienteering, with the controls in the right place, no major complaints about the courses, and good weather for running and spectators. What a pity that the entry fees were so high, though, and that put off many would-be competitors - a pity that it may go down as the most expensive IOC yet.

Having said that, you might think that the high entry fees would guarantee a correspondingly high level of organisation, but this was not really the case. BOC, "one of the largest orienteering clubs in Cork and Munster" according to their website, seemed to be able to muster only a very small number of helpers. Despite Club Chairman Terry Ley playing a blinder and doing every available job himself at some stage, there were some serious administrative deficiencies in the event. Is it unreasonable to expect prompt results with split times, Sportident units woken up before the race, Routegadget, maybe even punches on the entry on the day controls? There was an unnecesessary neutralised section at the road crossing in the relay which made the head to head racing element a bit meaningless - the central feature of relays should be that it's the first team across the line wins. Taking on IOC is a serious undertaking, but the organisational standards which are adequate for a local park event may not be sufficient for an Irish Championships. As one comment below echoes, surely you should have an external controller, at least? BOC are obviously good at running local events (their web site lists an impressive 27 BOC events so far this year, not including IOC) but where were all the members last weekend - did the club buy into the IOC project as much as it could have?
The excuses for not having split times printed at the Relays ("we have run out of paper"; "we have no printer in the club") are not enough for competitors who supported the event at up to €80 per team.

Terry, Caoimhe, Eileen, Ruth.

Anyhow, clubs aren't queuing up to organise IOC so thanks are due to BOC for taking it on. Maybe if more club members got out more to events in other places there might be a realisation that the competitors expect and deserve better organisation and a less cynical approach.
We all appreciate that orienteering is run on a voluntary basis and without willing volunteers we would have no sport and no IOC. If there is a fault, it doesn't lie with the BOC team who were there  on the days; more perhaps with the people who weren't there, or on the failure to ask for help when it was needed: it was willingly offered in relation to the cattle access problem at Inch.
And yes: there was even a cuckoo at Inch - a sure sign of IOC!

Some other comments on IOC:

Just a few thoughts - Inch is always a great place for orienteering. We have some great sand dune areas, but I think it's still the best.  The new map was perhaps over detailed, perhaps some form lines could have been left off, or for us seniors, a 1:5000 print might have been better (but I'm probably looking for something to blame for my blunders) - but it was better than the previous maps, I didn't notice that anything was missing.

My memory is that the back area was more runnable back in the 80s, perhaps it's not grazed by sheep any more?

I enjoyed the middle distance on Saturday. I wouldn't complain that the course was too short, perhaps it could have been a bit more technical, and again, printed at a higher scale for seniors.

Generally, there was a lack of atmosphere around the event. Natterjacks, the event center, was very quiet on Saturday night, whereas 8 years ago it was buzzing.

One point which I think is a valid criticism is for an Irish Championship they should have had an independent controller from another club. In the results there isn't even a controller listed for the relays - Val Jones.

Despite the apprehension surrounding the weekend it turned out to be very enjoyable, the weather was excellent, the courses fair and the controls in the right place. It's just a shame that the exorbitant entry fees (80 Euro for the three races) - understandably - put so many off attending - Marcus Pinker (you can read Marcus's story of the relays here).

...  A relay should be about head to head racing with pretty equal "gaffles" so that competitors and spectators have an idea who is ahead of who. What is the point of a mass start and a first-across-the-line finish if, during the comp itself everything is so complex no-one knows what's going on? Particularly the last leg and particularly the last few controls on the last leg.
Having said that - great race Marcus; exactly how to approach Relay running. (former Irish Champion Eoin Rothery, now living in Australia)

Two things that I think are worth mentioning:

1/ the high quality of the courses on the Sunday. I didn’t get to see anything other than course four, but that course was excellent - a real championship course with route choices that tested the competitors both physically and technically.

2/ the willingness of many orienteers at short notice to do a cattle-watch shift. BOC encountered a land access problem on Saturday afternoon, asked for help on Saturday evening and by Sunday morning there were lots of orienteers available to do a shift. Note that the objective was not to protect the people from the cattle, or the cattle from the people; it was more about reassuring the landowner that we were listening to his concerns and taking action to prevent any safety incidents - Marcus Geoghegan.

I have never commented on an O event before now. If the Irish Orienteering Championships are supposed to be the "defining" event of the year in terms of competition and organisation, then this one fell well below the standard. It is Wed night and the results are still not published. Lets go back to the result string if needed!!!
It is no wonder that the number of competitors are decreasing.
If a club needs help to run IOC then get that help, not muddle through  - Denis Reidy

Gaffled Relays!!!! Finally! Relay was great (we'll ignore timed out controls/computer crashes). But everything else was great. Gaffled courses, great spectator area. Technical courses. 

Fun - Colm Hill

Night Navigation Competition

The Belfast mountain rescue team are running a night navigation competition starting at 9 pm on Saturday 19th May. This is a team event for teams of 4-6 people to raise funds for the team. Details here.

VHI/Tollymore weekend

The midsummer weekend has become something of an O-festival in Northern Ireland. This year is no exception, with LVO hosting the Veteran Home International and two open events for all comers at Meelmore (Saturday 16th June) and Tollymore (Middle distance, Sunday 17th). Added to the mix this year is an urban O-race in the centre of Newcastle on Friday 15th. Details from LVO here.

JWOC Team Selected

The team to represent Ireland at the Junior World Championships (6th-14th July) in Slovakia will be:

W20 Áine McCann (LVO)

M20 Colm Moran (3ROC), Conor Short (CNOC), Josh O'Sullivan-Hourihan (BOC).

Read about JWOC 2012 here. 

IOA AGM

In the middle of IOC 2012 the IOA managed to slip in a quite well attended Annual General Meeting in Castlegregory.  The Officers' Reports are on the IOA web site here.
Outgoing Chairman Brendan O'Brien made the very valid point that the people on IOA only have a limited time to devote to orienteering and specifically to IOA activities and that it is much better and more productive if they spend this time on positive things rather than on negatives like disputes between clubs. Brendan has to step down as he has been Chairman for three years. The post remains to be filled and IOA hopes that a suitable person will be found and co-opted. Ivan Millar (Director of High Performance) has gone abroad for a year and so Darren Burke has taken up many of his functions leading up to the 2012 World Championships in Switzerland. Another change was Ruth Lynam (Juniors) stepping down (after seven years?) and Mike Long taking over. Ruth received tributes from seniors, parents and juniors alike : she was and is universally respected by the juniors she dealt with.
The rest of the Executive stays as it was: Treasurer Sarah Ní Ruairc; Mapping Brian Power; Education Ed Niland; Development Andrew Cox; Communications Finn Van Gelderen, Fixtures Fergal Buckley; Technical Harold White.
Thanks to them all for their work on our behalf.

Liam O'Brien (R) receives the Spirit of Orienteering Award

There were some awards announced at the AGM: The new "Spirit of Orienteering Award" went to CorkO's Liam O'Brien; the Mactíre Trophy went to Marcus Pinker (CorkO); the Silva Trophy went to Greg McCann (LVO) and the Silva Award went to Tommy Burke (Fingal). The nominations will be on the IOA web site.
The IOA has also instituted a series of retrospective awards recording significant performances over the years and you can see more details of these in a while. The only ones I remember were Aonghus OCléirigh, Aislinn Austin, Marcus Pinker, Alex Simonin and Andrew Quin ...

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...

While we were running in the dunes at IOC, Irish orienteers were distinguishing themselves in other areas. At the huge overnight relay in Sweden, Tio Mila,  BOC's Nick Simonin finished 16th for his Swedish club IFK Lidingo in the 14 km+ first leg (only 32 seconds down on Swedish team member Martin Johansson), the team finishing 6th overall; former Irish Champion Andrew Quin (3ROC) was also running in Tio Mila, as was former Champion Niamh O'Boyle (CNOC). Read about Tio Mila here.
At the British Championships, James Logue was 9 minutes clear to win M40L, Toni O'Donovan was 13th W21E, Faye Pinker 7th W35L.

May 2012/1

Irish Champs Preview

This weekend's Irish Championships in Kerry will bring togather some of the best orienteers and the best terrain in Ireland, with a feast of sand dune orienteering on three contrasting areas on the Dingle Peninsula. Castlegregory and Inch have been used for orienteering before, but the Maharees is a new map. Castlegregory and Inch have been resurveyed for IOC, a move necessitated by the natural movement of the dunes and aided by the arrival of LIDAR technology for Inch (read more about LIDAR here).
Saturday's middle distance race at Castlegregory will have courses from 1.2 to 6.4 km before moving to the classic distance at Inch with an M21 Elite course of 10.6 km with 500 m climb (reduced from 13.1 km with an incredible 750 m). The Women's Elite course is almost as long, at 9.3 km with 450 m.

Numbers are down on recent IOC's, probably due to the high entry fees, and this is likely to have a negative effect on the perceived level of competition: there are only two classes with more than 10 competitors. Nevertheless, there will be stiff competition out there: will defending Men's Champion Marcus Pinker (who has won on these dunes before) manage to hold off Darren Burke and Gerard Butler? Will Áine McCann's youth and fitness be enough to overcome the skill and stamina of Ruth Lynam and the experience of Ros Hussey? As Danish physicist Niels Bohr is supposed to have said, prediction is very difficult, especially about the future. We'll know the answers in a few days.
Monday's Relays return to the north side of the peninsula, with a mass start at 10.30 for all teams. Teams in a relay run broadly similar legs, but in a different order or with cross-overs in mid course ("gaffles") to prevent following. Munster teams dominate the start list, with the organisers. Bishopstown, fielding ten of the twenty five teams, followed by CorkO with four teams. At this stage it seems safe to say that Bishopstown will take the Women's Premier class (both teams entered are BOC) and Cork O are likely to be uncatchable in the Men's Open (Darren Burke, Brian Corbett and Marcus Pinker) though a wild card in the form of a Ukranian team is something of an unknown quantity.
Finally, we'll be running through marram grass so don't forget to pack your gaiters!
For more information on IOC, visit the competition web site here.
Maybe some of you will write about your IOC for The Irish Orienteer, rather than leaving it all to me!!!

 IOA AGM
One of the features of the Irish Champs weekend is the Annual General Meeting of the Irish Orienteering Association. This takes place on Sunday evening and is an opportunity to voice your opinion on the activities of IOA and to lend them your support. Orienteers all prefer to be out there doing it rather than sitting at meetings talking about it, but without IOA, there would be no structured orienteering, no government grants, no international representation.
If you're around Kerry this weekend, do go along to the meeting.
 

IOF at 50

The prizegiving at the first World Championships, Finland 1966

The International Orienteering Federation celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 2011 and has just released an on line video to mark the event: you can see it on the IOF web site here. It follows the sport from the early days and focuses on elite competition. Can you spot Eileen Loughman at the start of the 1979 World Championships Relays in Finland?
When the Federation started at a meeting in Denmark there were just 10 members: Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Federal Republic of Germany, Finland, German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. The IOF now has 73 member countries and at last year's World Championships in France there were more than 50 countries represented.

"Inside Orienteering"

You can catch up with the latest news from IOF with the on-line "Inside Orienteering" magazine here.

• “It’s fun and rewarding to be an organiser”
• Behind the Scenes: David Rosen
• North South East West: Spain
• Orienteering and the Environment survey
• Paralympic class in IOF Trail Orienteering events
• Tove Alexandersson – Just an occasional day off!
• News in brief

May MTBO Off

The planned Mountain Bike orienteering event at Djouce Woods, Co. Wicklow, on May 13th has been postponed.  The organisers, Setanta, failed to get any other clubs on board to run a series of events in May. There were some offers from clubs and it is hoped that a series of MTBO races will be held in September, possibly on Saturdays. Watch the IOA fixtures list for details.

Odds & Ends & Odds

They sound like lines from Brian Friel's play, "Translations" but what do these placenames have in common?
Croaghakeadew, Croaghloughslug, Meenabrock, Clogher Hill, Croaghmeen, Barnesyneilly, Croaghnakern, Croaghnameal and Meenadreen.
Full marks if you identified tham as the areas which are out of bounds in advance of the 2013 Irish Championships near Lough Eske in Donegal!