Orienteering Events until July 8th

All of the events below have courses suitable for beginners (except the Rogaine on June 28th). Ask at Registration for advice on the most suitable course.

 

DATE VENUE – click on the links below to get map to venue and start times EVENT TYPE Organising Club
Sunday, 22nd June Lough Hyne Wood, off Skibbereen / Baltimore road, Co. Cork Family Day Bishopstown
Sunday, 22nd June Dalgan Park, Navan, Co. Meath ‘Come-and-try-it’ Event Fingal
Tuesday, 24th June Moanbaun Wood, Watergrasshill, Co. Cork CorkO Summer League Cork
Tuesday, 24th June Ringsend Park, Dublin 4 ‘Come-and-try-it’ Great Eastern Navigators
Saturday, 28th June Wicklow Mountains, Co. Wicklow Rogaine Ireland 2014 / (Pre-entry) Setanta
Sunday, 29th June Deerpark Wood, Midleton, Co. Cork Family Day Bishopstown
Tuesday, 1st July Ballyannon Wood, Midleton, Co. Cork CorkO Summer League Cork
Tuesday, 1st July Carrickgollogan (Lead Mines), Kilternian, Co. Dublin ‘Come-and-try-it’ Event Great Eastern Navigators
Tuesday, 8th July Tracton Wood, Minane Bridge, Co. Cork CorkO Summer League Cork
Tuesday, 8th July Applewood, Swords, Co. Dublin Come-and-try-it’ Event Fingal

Dalgan Park, Co Meath.

Fingal are having a local come and try it event in Dalgan Park, Co Meath. There will be 2 courses available, Long 6.8K and Short, 3.3K, minimal climb on both.  All are welcome, starts from 11.00 until about 13.00. SportIdent will be used. Dalgan Park is just south of Navan on the old N3, now the R147

Directions – take the M3 from Dublin, take exit 7 onto the R147.  Head North, Dalgan Park is on the left. You can also take the R147 through Dunshaughlin to avoid the toll.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=53.6099&mlon=-6.6328#map=12/53.6099/-6.6328&layers=N

LOUGH HYNE WOOD, off Skibbereen / Baltimore road

National Grid Reference W 094 288
Cork Summer league (Round 8) & Family Day
Start Times from 10.30 am to 1 pm.
Courses Close at 2 pm
MAP-MEMORY (hardest) – No Map
NORWEGIAN COURSE – Blank Map
SCORE COURSE
RED COURSE
ORANGE COURSE
YELLOW COURSE (easiest)

 

Orienteering events until June 22nd

All newcomers are welcome to these events, explain at Registration that you are a beginner and they will advise you about a suitable course.

DATE VENUE EVENT TYPE CLUB
Tuesday, 17th June James’s Fort, Kinsale, Co. Cork CorkO Summer League Cork
Tuesday, 17th June Hollywood, Co. Wicklow CNOC Summer Evening Series Curragh-Naas
Sunday, 22nd June Lough Hyne Wood, Cork Family Day Bishopstown
Sunday, 22nd June Dalgan Park, Navan, Co. Meath ‘Come-and-try-it’ Event Fingal

James’ Fort, Kinsale

The sixth event in the Cork Orienteering Club Summer League will take place in James’ Fort, Kinsale on TUESDAY JUNE 17TH.

The James’ Fort map was updated last year and now complies with the International Specification for Sprint Orienteering Maps (ISSOM). Sprint orienteering is all about rapid decision making and the compact nature of this open area will no doubt have you zigzagging around the historic fort. With the Dock beach as part of the map it provides an ideal spot for a post run cool down with a paddle in the water or a relaxing picnic. So why not come prepared and make the most of the long bright evening.

 
Presently 14 people have attended all our league events to date and if any of these make it to James’ Fort they will become league finishers and will be the first to earn one of our specially designed league finisher technical t-shirts which will be given to all league finishers at the end of the summer.
At the half way stage in the competitive events in the league it is Jonathan Lucey who is the leading man on the Long course with 18 points and Trishia O’Mahony is leading the way in the Ladies league with 16 points. On the Short course Chiara Bosonnet is the current league leader with 55 points.
You can check out the latest league tables here.
Be sure to find your Summer League nemesis and use the remaining events to overtake them in the league tables. I suppose a more pertinent question regarding next Tuesday’s event is will someone be able to deny Cillin Corbett his hat trick of wins in the 2014 Summer League?

 

Hollywood Orienteering and Barbecue

The final CNOC summer evening orienteering event is in Hollywood village in Co. Wicklow next Tuesday 17th June.

Orienteering start times 18:00 to 19:30.  Courses close at 20:30.
Don has planned two courses:
Adventure – 3 km fairly easy course with some sections in the forest.  There will be a 2.5 km version of this course suitable for buggies.
Score – get as many controls as possible in 50 minutes.  Score 10 points per control, penalty 10 points per minute or part minute over 50 mins.  No bonus for getting to all the controls but it should be possible…

We will have our usual near-midsummer barbeque at Tutty’s pub after the orienteering, though unusually the forecast is good!

You can just arrive and register on the evening, but it makes things much easier for the organisers if you pre-register to enter HERE.
Please let us know in advance if you are bringing a group.

Some catching up to do …

A Scandinavian scene: a calm lake, with forest running down to the edge, sunshine, open mountainside strewn with boulders, a cuckoo calling in the distance, clouds of voracious midges in the still evening air … orienteers lining up to start in one of the country’s most prestigious events … Are we sprinting in Sweden? Navigating in Norway? Disporting in Denmark? Actually, no: we’re orienteering in Oughterard at the 2014 Irish 3-Day in Co. Galway.

Yet again the handful of orienteers west of the Shannon put in a major effort to run a top class competition for us: the extended Ryan and Duff families with the help of a few others (Martin Flynn, Padraig Higgins, Paul Dunne and Pat Healy) laid on an ambitious three days of orienteering for the hundred and fifty lucky people who entered – disappointing turnout, given that the effort for the organisers is pretty much the same whether it is 150 or 300 entrants.

Two Swedes, Simon Svensson and Josefine Carlsson, took the top spots in the M and W21 Long classes, despite Kevin O’Boyle’s blistering run on Monday, while many of the Irish elites were away in Italy for the World Championship selection races the same weekend.

Some of the area to the north of Lough an Cogair had been used for last year’s Irish Championships but we approached from a different direction this time, so we weren’t bussed to the area and could park not far from assembly. The organising team showed remarkable economy in having the same assembly area and parking each day, the same last control and finish on the first two days, and a start and finish close by on the third day.
Saturday afternoon had a middle-distance event which basically amounted to circumnavigating the lake in an anti-clockwise direction. The longer courses had a section of forest to start with before emerging, blinking, into the light where the bouldery open mountainside started; the shorter courses had a longer walk to the start but had no orienteering in the forest. The midges, however, did not discriminate between the two starts.
Lough an Cogair

The early forest was actually quite interesting, with closely-spaced moss-covered trees reducing visibility, and widespread moss and vegetation-covered ground and boulders. A controversial control situated on a stream caused problems for many people, with further confusion introduced by an unexplained hand-drawn line on the map in the same area: was it a road? a ride? a fence? Post-race analysis came to the conclusion that it was another stream close to the one the control was on, though it should have been marked and explained on the maps in the start boxes.
The Sunday event was a classic distance race starting close to the finish of the previous day. No trees today, but lots of boulders. I don’t think I was alone in having difficulty in relating the boulders on the map to the ones on the ground – in the terrain the boulders could be several metres high but these weren’t always clear from the map. The terrain was reasonably runnable and the climb wasn’t too severe.
Monday’s chasing start (where your start time is basically calculated by adding together your times from Day 1 and 2) went off smoothly, with the course leaders starting at 10.00 am. Some fast and furious racing with lots of changes of direction on the longer courses, not too much climb and a nice breeze, brought the runners home happy.
The strain of running an event like this, in quite technical terrain and with such a small number on the organising team, did begin to show this year: there were some issues about the accuracy of control placement and the overall accuracy of the maps which were negative features of the weekend, but overall the event was a positive experience for the competitors and we did express our gratitude to Frank Ryan and the other members of Western Eagles for staging the event. However, if only 150 people are going to come to an event like this, it does demoralise the organising team. Admittedly, there were several repeat visitors from abroad who come to enjoy the Irish orienteering experience again and again, and they were as usual very positive about the event. This year it also clashed with the British Championships, reducing numbers further. SSome additional promotion and marketing of the 3-Day, whether it’s in Connacht or Munster, might bring the numbers up to a level where the event would be financially viable and it would be possible then to do some professional remapping or correcting of the maps to make them above reproach.
In previous years the 3-Day Shamrock O-Ringen, spearheaded by Cork Orienteers, has run in the years between the WEGO events, but I understand that no firm decision has yet been taken about the Shamrock next year. It’s a lot of work for the organising club, but a lot of fun for the competitors …

WOC Team Selected

While we were running around Co. Galway, the aspirants for the Irish World Championships team were at the selection races in Italy. You can see the team selections below – congratulations to you all!
The WOC is in early July, largely in the alpine forests in the mountains about 2 hours north of Venice, but with a sprint race in Venice itself. The 5-Days of Italy is being run in parallel with WOC and has attracted an entry of about 1800. See the WOC web site here.


WOMEN MEN
SPRINT Niamh O’Boyle

Rosalind Hussey
Olivia Baxter
Reserve – Susan Lambe
Nick Simonin

Darren Burke
Josh O’Sullivan-Hourihan
Reserve – Colm Moran
SPRINT RELAY Best two results from individual

Competition.
Res – Third athlete
Best two results from individual competition.

Res – Third athlete
MIDDLE Niamh O’Boyle

Res – Susan Lambe
Conor Short

Res – Darren Burke
LONG
Nick Simonin

Res – Colm Moran
RELAY
Nick Simonin

Conor Short
Darren Burke
Res – Colm Moran

Some interesting analysis on World of O into the bunching in the middle distance and classic races in the pre-WOC Italy when the start interval was reduced from 2 minutes to 1.5 in the middle and from 3 minutes to 2 in the long. This is an International O-Federation initiative to reduce the total length of time the competitions take. Read about it here.

Tollymore O-Festival
Another action-packed weekend of orienteering is being offered by LVO in Co. Down on June 20-22nd, starting with an urban race in Newcastle on Friday evening, then a colour event incorporating the LVO Club Championships at Donard Forest on Saturday, then Pre-O (a.k.a. trail orienteering) and junior training that afternoon, plus the NIOA AGM and a barbecue, all on Saturday. On Sunday there’s a sprint relay at Tollymore.
Camping is available in the beautiful Tollymore Forest Park, in a special field for orienteers, from Thursday, and there’s an NWOC evening event at Drum Manor, Cookstown (admittedly, not close to Tollymore) on Thursday evening. More details here. Enter at Fabian 4 here.

Ones to watch
The 17th Setanta Rogaine is on June 28th/29th, starting at the Shay Elliot memorial between Laragh and Glenmalure. There’s a 24-hour event starting at 2 pm on Saturday and a 6-hour event starting at 8 am on Sunday; both finish at 2 pm on Sunday. Details here.

Summer evening events in Leinster will continue on Tuesday evenings right through to mid/late August, the first fruit of the revitalised Leinster O-Council. See full details on the IOA Fixture list. After then CNOC series, there will be events run by GEN, Fingal, Ajax and 3ROC, at least.

JK Report: falling into the 2better late than never” category, I did a report on JK 2014 at Easter in south Wales but it has vanished into cyberspace so I’ll have to do it again when I have time … unless someone out there will do it for me?

Orienteering Events from June 8th to 10th

There is one event on Sunday in Cork and two events on Tuesday evening, one in Kildare and one in Cork. All events have courses suitable for Beginners. Beginners are always welcome.

 

VENUE  (click below for map to venue)

EVENT TYPE

CLUB  (click for more details)

*  June 2014
Sunday, 8th Doneraile Forest Park Family Day Bishopstown
Tuesday, 10th Walshtown Wood CorkO Summer League Cork
Tuesday, 10th Curragh, Co. Kildare CNOC Summer Evening Series Curragh-Naas

 

Curragh, Co. Kildare

Details and link for pre-entry for next Tuesday’s evening event on the Curragh are now available on the CNOC website http://www.cnoc.ie.
There are 3 courses on offer. The long course is 8km with 29 controls, a map exchange and a ‘spectator loop’. The medium course is 4.5km with 21 controls. These courses have been planned in ‘middle distance’ style with lots of variation in leg length and lots of controls. There is an exciting 2km adventure course around the Curragh trenches, suitable for beginners. Hope to see you there!

 

DONERAILE WILDLIFE PARK, Doneraile Village

National Grid Reference R 603 077
Cork Summer league (Round 6) & Family Day
Controls out from 8.30 am to 10.30 am
Start Times from 10.30 am to 1 pm.
Courses Close at 2 pm
MAP-MEMORY (hardest)  7.6 km, 150 m, 16 c (No Map)
NORWEGIAN COURSE  7.6 km, 150 m, 16 c (Blank Map)
SCORE COURSE c. 4.5 km, c. 090 m, 16 c
RED COURSE 4.8 km, 090 m, 15 c
ORANGE COURSE  4.4 km, 080 m, 12 c
YELLOW COURSE (easiest) 2.5 km, 055 m, 08 c

Walshtown Wood (East)

This particular area of Walshtown is new to orienteering even though it is on the 1987 map. The map has a good network of tracks and rides together with an amount of feature detail in some parts, in other places it has a large area of open woodland intersected by a single forest road with very sparse ground movement or feature detail.

The map is at 7,500 scale with 5M contours.

Irish Team – WOC 2014

The following team will represent Ireland at WOC 2014 to be held in Italy, which begins on July 5th.
WOMEN MEN
SPRINT Niamh O’Boyle

Rosalind Hussey
Olivia Baxter
Res – Susan Lambe
Nicolas Simonin

Darren Burke
Joshua O’Sullivan-Hourihan
Res – Colm Moran
SPRINT RELAY Best two results from individual

Competition.
Res – Third athlete
Best two results from individual competition.

Res – Third athlete
MIDDLE Niamh O’Boyle

Res – Susan Lambe
Conor Short

Res – Darren Burke
LONG Nicholas Simonin

Res – Colm Moran
RELAY Nicolas Simonin

Conor Short
Darren Burke
Res – Colm Moran
Running order – TBC
The selection panel congratulate all the team members and wish them well in Italy.
We would also like to take the opportunity to thank all the athletes who competed for positions on this team at all the various selection races.
Helen Baxter
Kyle Heron
Paul O’S-Hourihan

Veteran Home Internationals

The Veterans Home International (VHI) is an annual competition between teams from England, Ireland (Northern Ireland and Eire), Scotland and Wales. Each team comprises 2 men and 2 women in each age group 40, 45, 50, 55 and 60, and one man and one woman in age groups 35 and 65: 24 athletes per team.

Scoring: Points gained by a nation in the relays are to be added to the points gained by a nation in the 14 individual classes with the highest combined score winning.

Prizes: There are 4 trophies:

The Quaich for the nation that wins the relays.
The Lagan Valley Rosebowl for the nation that wins the individual event.
The Mickelgate Bar Trophy for the overall winning nation.
The “Stonewall Trophy” is presented to either Wales or Ireland, whichever has the greater combined points total.

For details on the Irish Team go to this topic on the  Forum-VHI’s, remember to subscribe to the topic to receive updates.

Orienteering in Ireland
  • Orienteering Ireland
    Irish Sport HQ
    Blanchardstown
    D15 DY62
    Ireland
  • fixtures@orienteering.ie
  • info@orienteering.ie