September 2012/1

In this issue ... MTBO Changes ... Emma wins World Cup race ... VHI Report ... Autumn events ... Croeso 2012 ... Thierry comes to Ireland

MTBO Changes 

There has been a change in the (short) series of mountain bike orienteering events planned for Leinster in September/October.
The final list is:
Sat. September 1st - Djouce Woods, near Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow (SET)
Sat. September 15th - Carrick Mountain, Glenealy, Co. Wicklow (3ROC)
Sun. October 7th - Curragh, Co. Kildare (CNOC).

There will be two courses each day. More details from the indivual clubs as we go along ...!

In the big wide world of MTBO, the World Championshiops were held in Hungary in August on what looks like very dry, dusty, grassy terrain with some forest. Results, maps, photos and videos are on the web site here. There were long distance, sprint, middle distance and relay races, and sprint categories for juniors and masters.
Will we have any Irish representation at the next Junior and World MTBOC in Estonia in August 2013? Follow the event here.

Emma wins World Cup Sprint
Emma Klingenberg, the Danish-junior-with -an-Irish-mother has won her first World Cup race in the Nordic Tour at Gothenburg. See the race on Finnish TV here.

Olav Lundanes (Norway) took the lead in the men’s race from the start – keeping everybody else behind until the start of the forking scheme. In the forking the Swedes Bergman and Lysell lost significant time – while Lundanes managed to keep the lead for most of it. Out of the forking,  Tranchand (France) and Kyburz passed the Norwegian – never letting Lundanes come back up. From there and on, Kyburz simply was faster than the rest – having time to cheer wildly in the run-in. Tranchand finished second.
In the women’s class, Emma Klingenberg took the lead from the start – and never gave it away. Into the forking scheme the Danish junior managed to shake everybody off – getting on with a 8-10 seconds lead to Helena Jansson (Sweden). Klingenberg kept running fast and orienteering well – and could take an easy victory 5 seconds ahead of Tatiana Riabkina with Judith Wyder in 3rd.

In the overall Nordic Orienteering Tour standings, Simone Niggli is still in a clear lead – although Helena Jansson reduced the lead down to 2:46. Judith Wyder in third is at 3:14. In the men’s class it is more open – with Kyburz being 1:27 ahead of Olav Lundanes with Thierry Gueorgiou in third at 1:59. With a sprint on Friday – Kyburz’s speciality – followed by middle chasing start on Saturday – nothing is yet decided. (From World of O). Read more here. 

Nordic Tour is the last part of IOF Orienteering World Cup 2012. It starts with 2 competitions in the world famous ski center Holmenkollen in Oslo, Norway. After that there is a race in Göteborg, Sweden and ends up with 2 more races in Kajaani & Vuokatti , Finland. The distances are sprint and middle, and in Göteborg it is the new format Knock-out-sprint with gualification, semi finals and final the same day.  All races are being broadcast on national TV in Finland, Sweden and Norway. 

Home International Report

Back in June the NIOA ran the Veteran Home International (in November conditions!) with the Individual at Meelmore in the Mournes and the Relay in Tollymore. helen Baxter was on the team, as well as being the Team Manager) ... Here is her report.

A Novice Manager’s VHI Report – Finally! 

"For the first time in quite a while Ireland managed to produce a full squad for this event – no doubt helped by being on home territory. Having said we had a full squad it did require a number of last minute adjustments (recruiting) as the injury toll rose and caused a few to fall by the wayside. Could this be because we are Veterans?? In the absence of any other volunteers I had offered to take on Team Manager – safe in the knowledge, or so I thought that I would not be running. That didn’t last long and I found myself on the team – too late to give myself a stiff talking to about fitness levels! Being on home territory didn’t seem to give us much advantage, the weather certainly wasn’t on anyone’s side, however we gave the Welsh a run for their money and came an honourable 4^th. Perhaps a longer build up and selection process is necessary! A number of the team put in some notable performances in the individual races – Marcus Pinker was 1^st by 4 minutes on M35, Steven Linton 3^rd in M45 and Aonghus O’Cleirigh  3^rd in M50, Ruth Lynam came 2^nd in W45 and  Jean O’Neill 3^rd in W65. Everyone else gave their all and possibly their breakfast after the run in on the relay – the photos on the website are worth a look to see the effort on everyone’s face. A stray branch on some of the relay courses allowed a few to give blood as well as sweat and tears for a more dramatic finish.

I learned a few things over my short time as Team Manager: organising orienteers is like herding cats only more difficult; it’s hard to brief your team if you are one of the first out; having watched the other teams go into huddles for a team talk before the BBQ I’m obviously missing something – was it a psychological pep talk or did they really not know each other and were doing introductions?  4 bottles of wine is definitely not enough for a full Irish team.

 To all of you who volunteered - thank you all for your efforts - you were great. Thanks too for the bottles of wine you gave me – just as well it was on Sunday morning rather than Saturday night. I think I enjoyed the experience (perhaps not the hirpling round Meelmore) and hope to continue as Team Manager – unless someone else is mad keen. I hope to start the selection process (recruitment drive) earlier next year but it is never too soon to let me know if you are interested- so that I can keep an eye on the results you understand. Any hints on pep talks gratefully received.

I might even get next year’s report done on time!"

Other Home Internationals are coming up soon too: The Seniors (M/W 20 and 21) are based at Pitlochry in Scotland on September 22/23 and the Juniors (M/W 14, 16 and 18) are near Gatwick Airport in south east England on October 13/14. Teams are expected to be announced very shortly.

Good luck to all the Irish teams!

JHI 2012 Irish Junior Squad

Junior Home Internationals 2012. This event will take place in Surrey, England on the weekend 13/14^th October. The following team has been selected.

W14 Eadaoin McCavana, Emer Perkins, Meabh Perkins, Norah O’Brien

W16 Roisin Long, Aoife McCavana, Caoimhe O’Boyle, Jill Stephens  

W18 Niamh Corbett, Cliona McCullough, Deirdre Ryan, Siobhan Delaney

M14 Eoghan Knight, Ruairi Long, James Millar, Robert Pim

M16 Jonathan Quinn [the 3 remaining places plus 1 reserve are to be chosen from the orienteers listed alphabetically below: decision pending… Frazer Howe, Peter Meehan, Cathal O’Cleirigh, Paul Pruzina].

M18 Eoin McCullough, Jack Millar, Laurence Quinn, Mark Stephens

Exotic Events Coming Up!

Autumn throws up some interesting competitions along with the usual Leage and other races. How about some of these?
August 26th - we've just missed LVO's event on the Copeland Islands off the coast of Co. Down ...
September 1 - Mountain Bike O - Djouce Woods, Co. Wicklow - SET
September 15 - Mountain Bike O at Carrick Mountain, Glenealy, Co. Wicklow - 3ROC
September 22 - London City race
September 23 - Southern Championships, Epping Forest, England
September 30 - Leinster Championships,  Carraig na Seabhac, Wicklow - Ajax. This area was mapped for the 2011 Irish Champs but wildlife restrictions meant that it could not be used in May.
September 29-30 - Brie 3-Day near Paris, including a night sprint around Eurodisney after closing time! Three races in two days.
October 6 - Northern Ireland Championships, Binevenagh, Co. Derry - NWOC. See a map of the area with its spectacular cliffs here. The area has been extended for this event. The Irish Trail O Championships are on at Binevenagh Lake the same day - now is your chance to try it! There's also a night event on Saturday evening and a sprint in the University at Coleraine on the Sunday.
October 7 - MTBO, Curragh, Co. Kildare - CNOC
November 10-11 - Street O in Venice, MOV2012
November 25 - Connacht Championships, Knockbarron, Co. Offaly. Not in Connacht, but a super little area of eskers. *** Since changed to Portumna, Co. Galway***

Croeso 2012

How many letters do you need to change to turn “Wales” into “Wellies”? 

That was one of the puzzles looking at the weather in the weeks leading up to the 

Welsh 6-Day, Croeso 2012. 

As it turned out, I needn't have worried, as the sun was splitting the stones all week. 

This was just as well as four of the areas were exposed, open upland terrain and if 

conditions had been bad it would have been a different story. The other puzzles 

were things like, would the event drag on? Would the tent leek? 

(Enough Welsh puns, thank you ...)“Croeso” means “welcome” and the 

event centre, Aberystwyth - just across the sea from Arklow – was a welcoming 

place for the 2400 orienteers who came. 

A small enough group of Irish orienteers travelled, but they included an 

Irish Junior Squad tour and they produced some fine performances.

Four of the areas had never been used before and the mix included 

four long races, one middle distance and one urban (but not a sprint) race. 

The first day at Gwanas was on West-Cork style contoured open with 

lots of marsh and boulders, but with some steep hillsides to run across in the 

later stages. Day 2 at Foel Goch provided a similar challenge but with an 

uninspiring hill in the centre between the interesting parts, although the 

final parts of all courses were very easy through short grassy fields.
The third day, at Hafod estate, was the only forest of the week and was 

used for a middle distance race. 

The forest was white on the map but wasn't as runnable as I had expected. 

The planner made good use of the available area, though, with lots of short 

legs and direction changes as befit a middle distance race.
A well-earned rest day on the Wednesday followed before a return to the 

mountains at Llynnoedd Teifi (Teifi Lakes) for days 4 and 5, with 

the prospect of an urban race for Day 6. More west-Cork style orienteering, with 

lots of contours and marsh, and big lakes providing route choice.
The final race was an interesting mix of forest, parkland, housing 

estates and Aberystwyth University campus which provided lots of 

variety: make no mistake, Aberystwyth is hilly!

Notable Irish results were first place for Jack Millar (1st M18L), 

Aonghus OCléirigh (1st M50L), Steven Linton (3rd M45L), 

Liam O'Brien (3rd M55S), Eoin McCullough (2nd M18L), 

Shane Lynch (9th M21L), Frank Martindate (2nd M75L), 

Clodagh Moran (10th W12A), Róisín Long (2nd W16A), 

Aoife McCavana (7th W16A), Fionne Lynch (2nd W21V), 

Violet Linton (9th W40L), Anne May (7th W60S).

The verdict on my first Welsh 6-Day? Good orienteering, 

though perhaps not as varied or demanding as Scotland, 

an excellent event centre, good organisation from a small 

group of orienteers, and luck with the weather made for a 

most enjoyable week's orienteering.

(Factfile: The Scottish 6-day runs on the odd years with a 

Welsh and a Lake District 6-Day alternating on the even years, 

so expect the next Welsh in 2016 ...).

Squad train with Thierry in Ireland 

We are delighted to welcome Thierry Gueorgiou to Ireland in October for a training weekend with the Irish squad. Thierry is the current world number 1 and 10-time world champion – see an impressive list of achievements at World of O here.
The weekend (October 20/21) will be held in Tollymore forest, Co. Down and Carlingford Mountain, Co. Louth. This is a beautiful part of Ireland and will provide both forested and open terrain.
For more information, contact Niamh (niamhoboyle at gmail dot com)
You can watch Thierry and the rest of the world’s elite in action via GPS and live TV in the final round of the 2012 World Cup this week. See the Nordic Orienteering Tour website for details. (Niamh O'Boyle)
Photo above: Thierry takes the WOC middle distance title in France, 2011 (courtesy of WorldofO)

Break Time

Well done to Nick Simonin on a fantastic 27th place in the Sprint and on qualifying for the Long Distance final at the World Championships.

You can read about WOC 2012 on the Senior Squad blog here.

TIO is taking a short break. After the break we expect to have reports on WOC, JWOC, Sorlandsgaloppen in Norway, the Welsh 6-Day and maybe the World Masters in Germany and World Student Champs in Spain, plus other summer O-activities.

In the meantime. look out for those summer orienteering events at home like the 3ROC series of four Tuesdays in the Phoenix Park in August, celebrating the Park's 350th Anniversary, on August 7th (Papal Cross), 14th (Furry Glen), 21st (Magazine Fort) and 28th (Furze Road), starts 6.30-7.30.
The first event is a charity fundraiser for DeafHear (DeafHear.ie) who provide services for the hard of hearing.

Get ready for the Fingal scatter event series on Sundays in Dublin in September and look out for three Leinster Mountain Bike orienteering events on Saturdays in September (the 1st, 15th and 22nd). More details later.

Finally, there will be a Junior training weekend in Dublin, including the infamous Phoenix Park time trials, on September 8/9 and the Senior Home International will be in Scotland on September 22/23, unfortunately clashing with the London City race and the UK Southern Championships in nearby Epping Forest. The Leinster Championships are a week later on the 30th in Co. Wicklow.

Enjoy the "Summer"!

John McC.

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 ...