July 2012/1
World Championships Team Announced

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.

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 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).

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.
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.

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.
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….

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 …
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.
Training in Tramore
Gaelscoil Philip Barun participated in a training session in Tramore at the end of term. Thanks to Veronica, Laura and Robert for their help in organising the event
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Training day in Waterford
Pupils from 4th and 5th class from St Marys National school, Ballygunner orienteering at the Ballygunner GAA grounds at the end of term. Huge thanks to Jana and Robert for the help with the event.
Mixed weekend at World Cup in Switzerland for Nick
Two very contrasting courses faced the world’s top orienteers in Switzerland. The middle distance on Saturday (a mixture of both orienteering and much taped route!) saw Nick finish in a disappointing 83rd position behind Swiss winner Matthias Kyburz. In Sunday, a sprint around the St. Gallen old town gave a great result, finishing in 17th in a competitive B final (results). Nick has been competing well in sprint races this year and is a good prospect for his second WOC sprint final.
You can re-watch GPS tracking from the top runners at the World Cup PostFinance homepage.
Next up for the Irish team: WOC!
EYOC 2011 – Czech Republic

Nick racing in World Cup this weekend
With Jukola over, attention returns to the upcoming World Championships. This weekend there are 2 World Cup races in Switzerland in similar terrain to what awaits in WOC in July. Ireland have a sole representative – Nick Simonin will race in the 7km middle distance in St. Gallen on Saturday. To qualify for the PostFinance sprint race on Sunday, you must be amongst the top 40 competitors in the overall World Cup standings. Nick is currently lying in 73rd position and points from Saturday’s middle distance competition would put him in contention.
Selected competitors on both days will have GPS tracking. See the competition homepage for more information: www.postfinancesprint.ch
Good luck Nick!
Other team members are making their own preparations for WOC. Someone is taking no chance of ankle injury, and was spotted with his ankles strapped at a recent wedding. It couldn’t be noticed if he had his laces taped too…
Image courtesy of WorldOfO
Ireland’s WOC 2012 team
The team that will represent Ireland at the World Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, between July 14th and 21st has been announced.
European sprint finalist Rosalind Hussey has been in good form this year and will race both the sprint and middle races. Ciara Largey will put her strength from her hill-running success to good use in the middle and long races. In the men’s team, a CNOC trio of Colm Hill, Hugh Cashell and Ruairi Short will be aiming to qualify for their first WOC final, alongside newly appointed High Performance Director Darren Burke of CorkO. The men’s team is completed by two previous WOC finalists. Nick Simonin will look to to repeat his appearances in the WOC finals of 2010 in the long and sprint. David Healy has been specialising in the sprint this year and will be racing for a place in the sprint final.
Women:
Rosalind Hussey (DUO) – sprint and middle
Ciara Largey (FermO) – middle and long
Men:
Colm Hill (CNOC) – sprint, middle, relay
Darren Burke (CorkO) – middle, long, relay
Nick Simonin (BOC) – sprint, long, relay
Ruairi Short (CNOC) – middle
Hugh Cashell (CNOC) – long
David Healy (GEN) – sprint
The WOC 2012 website is here: www.woc2012.ch
Many of the Irish team’s training logs can be followed at Attackpoint, here.
Thanks to the selectors and good luck to the team in the final stages of their preparations.
Irish at Jukola
This weekend the Venla and Jukola relays are being held near Helsinki in Finland. A number of the Irish senior and junior teams are taking part:
Colm Moran – OK Tisaren team 3 (team number 1393) – 5th leg
Conor Short – OK Tisaren team 3 (team number 1393) – 7th leg
Nick Simonin – IFK Lidingö SOK 1 (team number 42) – 1st leg
Niamh O’Boyle – GMOK (Venla team numbers 15 and 22) – reserve (running for Wing OK 3 team 1017, 3rd leg)
John McCullough is also running with London orienteering club (team 1020, 5th leg) with Ronan Cleary on the last leg for that team. In total an impressive 1658 teams will compete in Jukola and 1248 in Venla. Read all about the event and follow the results and GPS at the Jukola homepage: http://www.jukola.com/2012/en/
June 2012/2
Irish 3-Day, Co. Galway
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.

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.

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.
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:
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 15thSetanta 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. Detailshere.
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.
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 …
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…”.)
More team pix from the Irish Schools Champs
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Proud Chelsea teachers presenting half Nagle Rice 2/3rd yr team winners at Irish Champs |
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Newtown 1st yr boys winners |
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Newtown 1st yr girls 3rd place |
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St Marys Mallow winners 2nd/3rd yr girls |
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St Marys Mallow 1st yr girls winners |