Orienteering this weekend is in Cork, Dublin and Waterford

There are 5 events this weekend.

[accordion][acc title=”FOTA ARBORETUM, HOUSE & GARDENS, BelvellyBridge, on Cork / Cobh road”]
National Grid Reference W 791 708
Cork Winter Brass Monkey league (Round 6) & Family Day
Electronic punching for Red to Brown courses (hire of SI card eur 1)

Start Times from 10.30 am to 1 pm.
Courses Close at 2 pm

BLUE COURSE                                  7.9 km, 080 m, 28 c
GREEN COURSE                              6.1 km, 060 m, 28 c
RED COURSE                                    4.0 km, 050 m, 22 c
ORANGE COURSE                           3.3 km, 040 m, 15 c
YELLOW COURSE (easiest)             2.2 km, 030 m, 13 c
[/acc][acc title=”Shanganagh, Shankill, Co. Dublin”]
3 courses on offer, all suitable for beginners, though note the shortest distance to complete each course.

Short 2.5km – shortest route 3km
Medium 4km – shortest route 6km
Long 6km – shortest route 10km

Start times from 11.30am to 1pm,
1 minute start intervals

Courses close at 2.30pm

Short course stays within the park with some travelling off paths across grass.
Climb is relatively little on all courses and there are practically no contours on the map.

Medium and Long course venture into the residential area of Shankill east of the main street. Technically Street Orienteering is usually simpler compared to forest or mountain orienteering. The main challenge is route choice as often a striaght line route may not be possible. Also if you move quickly then keeping up with navigation can be challenging.

Maps A4 waterproof, Long course printed both sides.

Control descriptions are on map, though only on one side of the long course.
Loose descriptions are available for Medium and Long course.

Short course map has a Legend, Medium and Long don’t
A limited supply of loose Legends (waterproof) will be available for Medium and Long Course competitors who feel they need them.

Sportident timing will be used. Hire of Si card (Ecard) €2
[/acc][acc title=”Colligan Wood, Waterford”]
Waterford Orienteers will host the 2nd leg of the southeast league in Ballyconnery wood, Colligan, Dungarvan, County Waterford on Sunday 2nd February. Start times 11 to 12.30 (to allow time to watch rugby match!). The event carpark is at grid reference X 213 971. Follow signs from the R672.
The usual range of courses will be on offer from Blue to Yellow. Anyone bringing a group is asked to contact the event organiser to ensure enough maps are printed.
[/acc][acc title=”Rockbrook Park School, Co. Dublin”]
You are invited to the Night O event which will be held at Rockbrook Park School next Sat Feb.1.This will be Irelands first ever Night sprint (we think!). The event will be run on a new 1:4000 map by Lawrence Quinn. Courses will be approx 2.2 km and 1.3 km and thus we expect a winning time of some 15 minutes – similar to day time sprint events. The area is a mixture of playing fields, a small forest and a detailed collection of school buildings. If you have never tried night O and are keen to see what it is like in relatively “friendly” terrain this is your chance.

The school have kindly let us use one of their buildings for registration and for some social time afterwards over a cup of tea or coffee.

It would be great if you could enter online:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1wowl9DVXNmfINytM9P5aGzndr7whMUQSx6yaf2gf0h0/viewform

Look forward to seeing you there
[/acc][acc title=”Moanbaun Wood (Watergrasshill), Cork”]
All are welcome to join us at our first event of 2014!

There will be 4 courses:
Beginners: 3.3km
Improvers: 3.5km
Short Technical: 4.7km
Long Technical: 8.4km

This event is part of the ongoing Cork League, which runs from September to March each year. You don’t have to be a member to take part and beginners and families are welcome. Just show up anytime between 11.00am and 12.30pm and we will show you the ropes.

[/acc][/accordion]

Orienteering for this Weekend

For the weekend Jan 25th/26th there is Orienteering in Dublin and Cork.

Fingal Orienteers are hosting the fifth Dublin-by-Night orienteering event on Saturday 25^thJanuary at Tolka Valley. The area is a mix of street and parkland, ideal for night orienteering. A long course (5.7km) and a short course (3.2km) are on offer. Control descriptions are on the map. Map scale is 1:5000. Start times are between 18:00 and 19:00 with courses closing at 20:00. Punch controls will be used due to the proximity to an urban area. The start is in the car park at the newly opened All Weather Pitch complex on the grounds of the National Acquatic Centre. We have access to the centre for registration, changing room, refreshments and showers. However the complex closes @ 20:00 so if you plan to have a shower please start early. Event signposted from the N3 Snugborough road junction.
Entry fees are €6 for Adults and €4 for students, unwaged and OAPs.
Updates (if any) will be on the FingalO Google+, Facebook & Twitter pages.
Looking forward to seeing you there for the second use at a league event of our highly regarded map.

World Universities 2014 – Team Leader

Hi all,

In order to send an Irish team to the World University Orienteering Championships which are being held in the Czech Republic between August 12th-16th 2014, a team leader is needed in order to satisfy a Student Sport Ireland requirement.

http://wuoc2014.cz/

If there is anyone interested in applying for this role, or would like more information on the job, please contact me at elite@orienteering.ie

Darren Burke
Director of High Performance Orienteering
Irish Orienteering Association

Another year …

A belated “Happy New Year” to all our readers. There’s lots of exciting orienteering in prospect for 2014, with new areas both at home and abroad; night-O, Sprint-O, a World Championships, and accessible multi-day events in Wales and the English Lake District. The Juniors have some interesting plans too, with the prospect of training in Norway for next year’s Junior World Championships as well as a trip to the JK at Easter in Wales and maybe to the Lakes 5-Day in August.

A brief look back …
One of the series of events this year is the Campus Sprint races to raise money for the Junior Teams. Two events have already been held, at Waterford Institute of Technology in October and at Dublin City University in December.

The DCU event offered entrants a choice of a map in English or Irish, and planner Kieran Rocks used a seasonal Christmas tree as a control site, while one of the other sites, a statue, looked like something from Easter Island! (The juxtaposition of these festivals reminds me of the quiz question “When did Good Friday fall on Easter Monday?” – the answer is at the bottom of the page.) Further events in this rather scattered series are rumoured to be in UCC on February 15th with further events in TCD on 1st March and others at unspecified future dates…

… and forward
As usual at this time of year, TIO reviews some of the interesting events both at home and away, for the coming twelve months. Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Finland, Sweden, the UK and Brazil all feature. Even if you can’t go to any of these events, you can get lots of fun from looking at the websites!

Spain and Portugal are attractive destinations in the early part of the year, and this year sees multi-day events in Andalucia (February 14-16) with a World Ranking Event (WRE) at Punta Umbria, near Huelva, with training during the following week – not far from Faro airport (see here) , and the Mediterranean O-Championships in Portugal on 21st-23rd February, again with WRE’s, 160 km east of Porto, with a middle, sprint and long distance race (and some Irish already travelling) – see here. Who cares if it’s not really on the Mediterranean if the entry fee is only about €20 for three days? The same weekend, there’s an interesting concept at the Kvarner Bay Challenge on Cres Island in Croatia, where the entry fee is whatever you decide it’s worth – see here. Moving north, the Swedes come out of hibernation on February 28th with the Pan-Spring at Kristianstad with night, middle and long races close to where the 2014 O-Ringen will be – see here for entry details.
Early March has the Portugal O-Meet at Gouveia, in the middle of the country, from March 1-4. This has two middle and two long races, a night sprint, and trail-O, plus training opportunities. A week later you could run on the karst limestone terrain of Slovenia at the Lipica Open. If you’re taking off for St Patrick’s weekend you could go to the Mediterranean Open Champs in Tuscany on March 13-15. The event has a sprint, a middle, and a sprint in Florence. There’s also a pre-World Championships training camp near Venice from March 9-13. If you want to stay at home that weekend, there’s a sprint race in the walled city of Derry on the 16th, with a middle distance race the next day in the same general area. There are also hints of a long-O type event in the Galtee Mountains on March 15th where Bishopstown Orienteers are celebrating their 25th birthday. Back in Scandinavia, the Danish Spring event, marking the end of winter, is on March 22-23 in North Zealand, north of Copenhagen, with sprint, middle and long races but no relay.
Moving into April, CNOC’s Leinster Championships at Dysert, near the Rock of Dunamase in Co. Laois, is on the 6th. Further afield, there’s a World Cup race at Murcia in southern Spain on April 4-6, followed by the European Championships at Palmela, just outside Lisbon, in Portugal from 9th-16th, that’s roughly the week before Easter. Between then and Easter, the Riga O-Week in Latvia takes place (15-21st) in the 2014 European City of Culture, and the Spanish Championships in Andalucia (17-21st) where the Malaga orienteering club are also celebrating 25 years. At Easter, the Jan Kjellstrom O-Festival is in south Wales while there are also multi-day events in Prague (18-20), Sardinia (18-21) and Bulgaria (18-21).

The Irish Championships in Kildare and Wicklow kick off the month of May: a sprint on a new map of Maynooth, and middle, long and relay races near the Wicklow Gap. The same weekend, the big overnight relay “Tio Mila” is on in Sweden. 2014 is a big year for orienteering in Italy: at the end of May, there’s orienteering in Trentino, in the mountains north of Venice, the “3 days of Trenches“, to commemorate the area where there was fighting in the First World War 100 years ago. This is followed by the regular “Highlands Open” WRE on June 1st.

Apart from Western Eagles Three-Day in Co. Galway on May 31-June 2 and the British Championships near Newcastle on 31st/1st, , there’s also a 3-day in Belgium at St Hubert (June 7-9th) and the 11th European Rogaining Championships in Estonia (7-8th). Moving towards the main orienteering holiday season, the 66th Jukola 7-person overnight relay in central Finland is on June 14-15, with the Venla women’s relay in the afternoon of the 14th: thoroughly recommended. This is followed immediately by the Tallinn O-week in Estonia. For anyone searching for something a bit more exotic, there’s a 3-day in Iceland on June 27-29 and there are also a competition in Greenland (July 2-5). (A new airline called Wow Air flies from Gatwick to Iceland). Back in Sweden, at Salen (location of the 2008 O-Ringen where the Irish Juniors went on tour) there are 3 days competition on June 27-29, and three evening races in Stockholm on June 30-July 2, allowing you to be a tourist in the daytime and an orienteer in the evening.

Peak multi-day event time starts in July with the Sorlandsgaloppen (July 3-6) in southern Norway, but a big attraction will be the World Championships in Asiago in  northern Italy (July 5-13) with the associated Italian 5-Day open to everyone and including a sprint race in Venice. Clashing with this is the Fin-5 five day in (you guessed it!) Finland, at Kuusamo, from 6th-10th. Rather more out of the way is the Romanian “Transylvanian Open” at Cluj (July 10-13) leading towards the Junior World Championships at Borovets in Bulgaria from July 21-17. (Cluj is the venue for the 2015 European Youth O-Champs – the 2014 EYOC is in Macedonia on June 25-28). A longer event is the Kapaonik Open in Serbia (July 10-20). In Switzerland the Swiss O-week returns to the spectacular setting of Zermatt at the foot of the Matterhorn from July 19-26 and overlaps with the 50th Swedish 5-Day O-Ringen in Skane from July 20-16. The world’s biggest orienteering event promises lots of seaside forests in sunny southern Sweden – the O-Ringen is a must at some stage in your orienteering career!
Croatia, Slovenia, Norway and Slovakia also have multi-day events in July, and the World University Championships are at Olomuoc in the Czech Republic, location of WOC 2008, from August 11-17.

In August the closest multi-day event to us this year is the Lakes 5 Day in the English Lake District (August 4-8), promising varied terrain and lots of international competitors, but lake district traffic and accommodation are issues you may also have to contend with. In August, Slovenia hosts the OO Cup (1-5th) on what looks like spectacular Alpine terrain, and there’s a 5-day in Spain, 240 km north of Madrid on August 5-10 and a 5-Day at Uslar in Germany (4th-9th). The World Rogaining Championships are in South Dakota, USA, on August 16-17: “Rogaining” is long distance orienteering where you visit as many controls as you can, like a score event, but over a 24 hour period. Back in Hungary, the Hungaria Cup runs from 16th-20th near Budapest, then Greenland beckons again (August 23-25). For army orienteers, the CISM Military World Championships are in Austria from 24th August.

By September the big multi-day and holiday events are over,but there’s still plenty of good orienteering on, notably a series of four city races in London, Barcelona, Edinburgh and Porto. The London race, on Sunday September 21st, has an urban race in Guildford the day before; the Porto race in Portugal on October 3-5 has a night event, relay, score and city races. Edinburgh (11-12 October) features city races at Edinburgh and Stirling Castles, and Barcelona (1-2 November) with a sprint in Nou Barris Park and an urban race around the Old Town, complete the City Race Euro Tour.

Meanwhile, back in Italy, Croatia and Montenegro there’s 10 days of orienteering from Sept 29 to October 10: what a way to end the summer! Moving on, how about the 11th Istanbul 5-Days (October 29-November 2) which sometimes features a night race in the Grand Bazaar. For the more ambitious, the World Masters O-Championships (for over 35’s) are in Brazil has sprint, middle and long races from November 1-8.

At the end of the year, you have a choice of the warm or the cold … the Sylvester 5-Day in Belgium (December 26-30) or five events in the Canaries (Dec 27-Jan 4 2015).  Then, to look forward to in 2015 we have the World Championships coming to Scotland in August with the Scottish 6-Day, hopefully a Shamrock O-Ringen in West Cork in June, and the Swedish O-Ringen and the World Masters back to back in SW Sweden.

Fore more details of these events,and of many more, visit the World of O web site. Thanks to CompassSport Magazine, the IOA web site www.orienteering.org and World of O for the information I have extracted and presented here.

Finally, here’s an interesting street map for you: do you recognise it? Look closely to read the street names.

During the Cold War, apparently the Russians mapped cities and towns all over Europe and Dublin was no exception. This 1970 map shows (obsolete) tramlines and the uncrossable river Liffey and the text is in Cyrillic script, incidentally named after Saint Cyril. See more here.

Good Friday question: Reportedly a horse called “Good Friday” fell in a race on Easter Monday in 1946.

That’s all for now.

EYOC 2013 Video – Team Ireland

Some members of the Irish Junior team travelled to Portugal for EYOC 2013 last October. Thanks to Gerry Meehan of NWOC who travelled with the team, and has put together a video of the team’s trip.

You can find the video at the link below

EYOC 2013 – Team Ireland

Where is there Orienteering this weekend ?

The answer is Dublin, Kerry and Kildare.

Donadea, Clane, Co. Kildare

It’s time to kick off the cobwebs and start the new year with a run in the forest. CNOC are holding a local Orienteering event in Donadea forest park on the 19th January. ALL WELCOME.  Start times 11:00 to 13:00. Courses:  Long 7.5km. Medium 5km. Adventure 3km. We recommend full leg cover (not shorts). Free entry to the carpark for orienteers via the church entrance which is 100 metres further on from the main entrance. MAP. Pre-Entry is now open. Pre-Ehter HERE.

 Massey’s Estate, Dublin, Night Orienteering

Setanta Orienteers are hosting the fourth Dublin-by-Night orienteering event on Saturday 18^th January at Massy’s Estate. The area is runnable mature deciduous forest, ideal for night orienteering. There will be the usual long and short courses on offer. The long is 4km and the short 2km. The maps have the courses and control descriptions pre-printed on the map. Map scale is 1:7,500 and contour interval is 5m. Start times are between 18:00 and 19:00 with courses closing at 20:00. Sportident timing will be used.

Entry fees are €6 for seniors and €4 for students/OAP/unwaged. For insurance reasons, no juniors below 16 years of age are permitted. If you need to hire a SI card, it will cost you a further €2.

Parking is in Massy’s Estate and not the Hellfire Club car park (see osm.org/go/es~FUnLV  ). This may change.   The event will be signposted from Stocking Lane and the top of Oldcourt Road. All most welcome and looking forward to seeing you there.

 Blue Pool, Muckross, Killarney

Kerry Orienteers will host Kingdom League 5 at the Blue Pool, Muckross, Killarney. Signposted from Molly Darcys. Registration and starts from 11am. Courses close at 3pm. Overflow parking, toilet facilities, lunch etc available at Molly Darcy’s. Courses on offer as follows:

Orienteering this Weekend, 11/12 Jan 2013

Night O in Wicklow this Saturday is organised by UCDO. Day orienteering is on Sunday in Wexford and Cork, organised by WATO and BOC

Wicklow Night O

The 3rd event in the Dublin by night series is on this Saturday the 11th of January at Glendoo Ridge West. This was the location of the IOC Relays in 2011. The terrain is open mountain consisting of lots of turf cuttings. Runnability is quite good. There will 2 courses on offer, a Long and a Short. The Long course is 4.6km and the Short course is 2.1km. We suggest that this event is more suitable for the more experienced orienteers and not someone who has never tried night o before. Because the event is on open mountainside with a lack of tracks, a compass and a whistle will be mandatory.

Location of parking can be found here

Weather for Saturday evening looks ok but it could be a bit cold, in the case of poor weather conditions, a cagoule may also be necessary. Start times will be at the usual time of 6pm to 7pm. Courses will close at 8pm so if you think you are going to be slow then please start early. Entry fees are €6 for Adults and €4 for students, unwaged and OAPs.

Hope to see you there, Cillín Corbett, UCDO Night Orienteering Public Relations Officer

Wexford