Orienteering Events this Saturday and Sunday, 29th & 30th Nov 2014

The Griffeen Valley event is on Saturday not Sunday !  Start times are from 10.00 to 12.00 only. There will be two courses at this local event.

Marcus Pinker Reports from World Masters

The 2014 WMOC (World Masters Orienteering Championships) were held in Canela, Rio Grande do Sul, in the southernmost state of Brazil, and the first time that a major IOF event had been held in South America.  There was very little information prior to the vent as to what the terrain would be like, so approximately 1600 orienteers from 38 countries made the trip south to find out for themselves.

The WMOCs are an annual event open to anyone over the age of 35 who wants to pit themselves against the best in the world for their age category.  The event has the format of sprint and long distance races, the former having a qualification race to determine which final you run in (which depends on the number of competitors in your classes) while the long distance has two slightly shorter qualification races, from which you time is combined to give you both your final and start position.

The event kicks off with the sprint qualification, which this year was held in a city park in Porto Alegre.  The park didn’t contain much in the way of features so temporary fences had been added to add some navigational challanges. However, even with these the orienteering was straightforward and with short grass and flat ground the challenge was all about not losing tenths of a second.  If you  could run fast, this was a dream course.

The following morning, a two hour drive inland and up in the hills at Canela, competitors experienced their first true taste of what could be in store for the rest of the week at the Sprint Final model event.  The native woodland was thick and rough and very difficult to move through at any pace.  Everyone emerged from this knowing very well that straight was not going to be on option for the final in the afternoon.

The Sprint Final was held in parkland surrounding the Caracol waterfall, a stunning 130m waterfall that was visible from the start lanes (though I’m not aware of anyone actually noticing it!).  The area, though not a traditional sprint type of area, provided a good challenge with a mixture of fast open areas, tracks and steep hills as well as a few controls in the thick native woods.  Not having the speed required for a more traditional sprint, I very much enjoyed this race and was pushing hard enough to ensure that I was on the limit of my navigational ability for most of the race.  Not being a sprint specialist in any way I had no expectations for this race, I had only entered in in order to gain a bit of race practice and acclimatisation for the long races later in the week.  Needless to say I was somewhat surprised and very happy with the result – the first two were clearly running far quicker than I was capable of and I was lucky to finish just ahead of the chasing pack.

The long model the following morning provided a real contrast of both orienteering terrain and styles.  Part of it was open pine forest on rolling hills, this was fast and required fast directionally accurate running, while the adjoining area of native woodland was very slow with terrible visibility, it provided a real challenge but a bit of bad luck could see you pass a control by meters and not see it.

The first long qualification race was entirely in the open pine forest where the only difficulty was running through the pine needles, these were about 6 inches deep and were likened to running in fresh snow or sand.  Things changed instantly for the second race, where we were immediately dropped into native woods with a long leg.  Extreme care was needed here and I (along with many others) were realising that an Australian southern hemisphere compass does not work especially well in Brazil.  Once through the tricky first section the course opened up a lot with more pine forest and an area of open farmland, which didn’t provide any difficulty but is a common terrain type in the area and provided a contrast to woods.

The long final was back in the same area, so the hope was for a decent amount of challenging native woods.  Unfortunately this was not to be the case, with the courses instead focusing a hilly start through mature pine before a long route choice leg.  The basics of this course were sound enough with the controls being fair and in the right place, but the technical challenge wasn’t there with a lot of track options and few possibilities of losing much time.  I was very happy with the way I both ran and orienteered and ran this race, I certainly couldn’t have got any more out of myself on the day.  Again the first two were simply just too fast for me to be able to compete with (joint winners), so no regrets with matching my sprint result, especially as again the chasing pack was close behind me.

Overall this was a surprisingly enjoyable weeks orienteering.  The terrain was much better that I had been expecting and it all ran (from the competitors point of view at least) with no major problems.  I went out not knowing what sort of results I was capable of or indeed what the competition was like in my age category, so to some back with the performances that I achieved I am more than happy with.  I look forward to doing the WMOC again sometime and trying to improve on this set of results.

Marcus Pinker – CORKO

Orienteering Events this Sunday 23rd Nov

 Rinville Park, Galway

Start Times: 1100 – 1300
Courses: Long – 3.4k, Short 2.3k
Fees: €5 per individual or €10 per family
Directions: From Oranmore, take Maree Road and enter the park at the lodge gate.  The start is near the first entrance gate, close to the cemetary.
Further Information from Frank Ryan, wego@orienteering.ie

Deerpark, Co. Cavan

The event will be sign-posted from the town centre.  On arrival in Viriginia, take the R194 (Ballyjamesduff Road) and follow the signs to the rugby club.  There is some parking in the rugby club, but if that is full please park in the adjacent housing estate called “Swiftbrook”.

Course details are as follows:

There is also a buggy-friendly course but its details are top-secret.

Start times are from 11am until 1pm and courses will close at 3pm sharp.  The uber-organised may wish to download their control descriptions in advance and learn their course off by heart.  They may do so http://tinyurl.com/8x9j6sw  However, there will be paper copies available on the day for mere mortals.

We would ask as many people as possible to pre-register online at http://tinyurl.com/njm2y4j

WALSHTOWN WOOD near Dungourney

The second event in the Cork Orienteering Club Cork League will take place on SUNDAY NOVEMBER 23RD at WALSHTOWN WOOD near Dungourney.

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. A compass may be beneficial in these areas.

Orienteering Events for Sunday, 16th November 2014

The big event this weekend is the Connacht Orienteering Championships in Strandhill, Sligo.  There will be “entry on the day” on 2 courses. A 4k technical course and a 1.9k easy course.

In Cork there is an event in Fota, follow the links below for more details

Intervarsity Championships

This weekend Tyrella sand dunes play host to the Irish University Orienteering Championships.

This weekend’s event has arguably the highest quality field Irish orienteering has seen since the 2014 Irish Championships.

Dublin University Orienteers (DUO) from Trinity will be slight favourites for the Men’s title over rivals University College Dublin Orienteers (UCDO). Whereas in the womens, it looks set to be a tight battle between DUO, UCDO, and Queens from Belfast as well.

DUO currently hold both trophies, and last year dominated the intervarsity orienteering championships. They will look to retain both trophies, a feat which I am not sure has ever been achieved before.

In the Men’s A class DUO are expected to field a strong team including Irish WOC runner, and current intervarsity champion Conor Short, and JWOC runner Eoin McCullough, alongside Kevin O’Boyle and Kyle Heron. UCDO have similarly strong depth with Colm Moran, Cillín Corbett, Laurence Quinn, as well as Jonathan Quinn and Niall McCarthy who make their debut intervarsity appearances. The Queens team including JWOC runner Mark Stephens, and spaniard Mario Nogales should not be ruled out either. Individually, nearly all of these runners are capable of taking back the Gold medal, so predicting how this one plays out will be a tough ask.

In the Women’s A class DUO are expected to be lead by SHI runner Clíona McCullough, with experienced navigators in tow. Queens University Belfast have shown clear development of their squad, and lead by SHI runner Eibhlin Largey, and experienced orienteer Katarina Stefko will surely fancy themselves for a shot at gold as well. The final team rated with a chance at that prized trophy is UCDO, who expected to be represented by a team of debutantes, but including SHI runners Róisín Long, and Niamh Corbett.
Once again, a field of home international runners means the Women’s individual title could go one of many ways.

Certainly this is the strongest field the Irish intervarsity competition has ever seen, and we look forward to a great weekend of racing and dramatics. Good luck to all racing over the weekend.

For more info, and results when they come, got to: http://www.niorienteering.org.uk/

Orienteering Events this Sunday 9th Nov

For a full fixture list go to IOA Fixtures

Beginners are always welcome at events. Ask for advice at the Registration tent/car.

Sad News

Brian Power passed away earlier today, may he rest in peace.

Brian was a long serving member of Setanta orienteering club and also served on the IOA committee for a number of years as Mapping Officer. He was always very obliging and willing to contribute to developing the sport of orienteering but was also very happy to join in on social gatherings. He will be sadly missed.

The arrangements are as follows:

Removal from Our Lady’s Hospice Mortuary, Harold’s Cross on Friday evening to St. Colmcille’s Church, Knocklyon, arriving at 5pm. Funeral Mass on Saturday at 10am followed by burial in Mount Venus Cemetery. Family flowers only please, donations, if desired, to Our Lady’s Hospice, Harold’s Cross. All enquiries to Massey Bros. Templeogue Village, Tel: (01) 4907601.