Tramore results

A windy sunny Tramore was the venue for the final SE and Munster League event.
Thanks to John Casey (planner, controls out), Thomas Callery (controls out), Andrew Pim (Start, controls in), Liisa Honkasaari (registration, controls in) and Andrew Cox (controls in).
Results can be found here.

Where did the Easter bunny go?

The Pim and Cox families headed north to the JK 2011. Day 1 was the sprint in Stranmillis College. Fast and furious, not to everybodies liking, 25 controls in 2 km. I was happy with my run, 27th out of 101 entrants on M55 despite 2 one minute errors.
Day 2 was at Tyrella in the sand dunes where Robert Pim was best in 2nd place on M14B. Laura Cox was 4th on W20L. Day 2 was on Slieve Croob where Andrew Pim finished a creditable 35th out of 106.

It was left to the Cox family to fly the Wato banner at the Irish Champs held in the Wicklow mountains. Day 1 was the middle distance on the peat hags of Glendoo. Laura won the W20, Angela was 2nd in her class, Jana was 5th in W21s and Andrew was 8th out of 27 entrants on M55. Day 2 was the classic distance at Brockagh where I managed to be 2nd Irish finisher home, 7th overall behind some good GB runners. Laura won W20 again to be Irish Champion.

On the Saturday evening, there was a chance to try Mini O...highly complicated, loads of controls, instant decision making...look at the pictures!

Ballyconnery results

Full results can be found by following the link on the results section.

Fog to sun

After a foggy clod start, the day turned into glorious wam sunshine. Whilst there were few on the Blue course, the Red was very heavily subscribed. just under 100 people took part. Full results are uploaded here. Apologies for having to manually putting the finish time as the Finish control died. RIP! Thanks to Angela, Jana and Ian for their help in running the event today. For those interested in what it costs to run an event...we start each event with the Coillte licence (€40), the IOA registration fee (€35), printing the maps, plastic bags, petrol expenses when the map needs to be updated and planning the courses, putting out the controls and costs on the day. Any surplus goes to replacing equipment and further mapping.

Tower Hill results

Thnaks to Pat, Con and Hugh for running todays event. Results are uploaded to the IOA website...click here.

South East league Standings

For those interested in the SE league standings up to 12/02/11, click here.
Some adjustment will be needed in the end with red and orange courses as we do not always use the same nomenclature.
Results from Kilbunny here

Faithlegg recapture Primary schools shield

Thank you to members of Waterford Orienteering Club (Hugh and Liz Dobbs, Andrew Pim, Pat and Veronica Purcell, Jana Cox) and Form 5 pupils from Newtown school (Izzie, Nichola and Anna) for running todays event at the RSC.
280 Primary pupils took part from 9 schools. Full results here.
Pictorial coverage in the Munster Express, Sports section.
Overall winners were Faithlegg National School (92.23) who recaptured the mixed shield from last year's winners Butlerstown (98.15)
Waterpark (42.55) were clear winners in the 5th class Primary Boys section from Christchurch (62.07) and Faithlegg (73.17). James Bond and Joseph Ryan (Waterpark, 1st), Gary Healy and Dean O'Mahoney (Waterpark, 2nd) and Craig Johnson and Harry Jephson (Christchurch 3rd).

Faithlegg (37.20) narrowly won the 6th class Boys from Butlerstown (2nd, 38.27) and Dunhill (3rd, 61.10). Leading pair were Robert Pim and Conor Quinn from Dunhill whilst Sean Darcy and Joe Monaghan (Faithlegg) were 2nd and Bill Lacey and Tom Costello (Butlerstown) were 3rd.

St John of Gods were clear winners in both the 5th and 6th class sections.
In 5th class, Danielle Leonard and Ciara Silby (1st), Hazel Purcell and Maya Howlin (2nd) and Hannah Jacob and Casey Cullinane (3rd) gave JOG a clean sweep. Waterpark (2nd, 62.26), Christchurch (3rd, 83.53) and Faithlegg (4th, 85.03) were the team placings.

In 6th class, Lorna Aylward and Maeve Bolger (1st, JOG), Kate Maguire and Eleanor Walsh (2nd, JOG) and Niamh Walsh and Alice Hutchinson (3rd, Mercy) were the individual placings).
St John of Gods (1st, 31,53), Mercy (2nd, 42.14), Christchurch (3rd, 51.48), Faithlegg (4th, 55.03), Butlerstown (5th, 59.48)

Bad luck to the pair from Mercy Primary who had an exceptionally fast time but failed to punch one of the controls properly.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to one and all.

The highlight of the year has to be the JK event to be held for the first time in Northern Ireland. For seasoned orienteers and novices alike it is a chance to try a large scale event for the first time. Check out the website here. The brochure (which features our own Neil Dobbs) can be downloaded in pdf format here.
Anyone interested in purchasing a club top from Trimtex should email me to let me know if they are interested. I will post cost and other details shortly.

Orienteering challenge

Click here to see a 6 minute clip from the Breakfast Challenge with Chris Evans...guess what it's Orienteering!

Greenane results

The results from the event held at Greenane wood, Colligan, Dungarvan on 21st November are uploaded here.

Thanks to Con Murphy for helping on the start, Contols out and some pix. Thanks to Angela Cox for Registration.

Mahon Falls event

Full results are posted in the results section. Thank you to Pat O'Connor (Planner/Controls out), Norman Storey (Start/controls out), Elizabeth Storey (Registration), Hugh Dobbs (Start), Andrew Pim (controls in), Liisa Honkasaari (Controls in), Laura Cox (Download)

Results have been manually uploaded to incorporate adjustments for controls 201 and 207.

Tower Hill results

The results of the SE League event held at Tower Hill, Portlaw on Sunday 10th October can be found on the IOA website. Thanks to Con Murphy for his help putting out controls and starting on the day. The next event will be held at Davmore, Mahon Falls on November 7th.

Tramore results

Thanks to Andrew and Liisa for putting on the event in Tramore. Full results can be found at the IOA website. Apologies to the last few runners as I pulled in control 12 by mistake too early but it did not affect the times.

Easter 2011

The Jan Kjellstrom International Festival takes place In the North between 22nd and 25th April, 2011. One of our club members is splashed across the front cover!!! Download the programme in pdf format

Any orienteers suffer from insomnia?

JFK results

Results from the Non League, Come and Try it event held at Kennedy park as part of Heritage Week can be found on the IOA website. Apologies to those who are interested in their splits as there seems to be some problem uploading these without errors. Will work on ironing out the problem.
Thank you to Angela and Jana for their help in running the event.
The next event will be the schools event at JFK on 21st September. If anyone is able to lend a hand, I would be delighted to hear from you. The next club event will be in Tramore on 26th September.

Change of Direction in Sport

If you missed the Health Supplement on Tuesday in the Irish Times...here is the link

WMOC 2010

No pre-qualification....it is your chance to participate in a World event with former elites and regular club orienteers from all over the world. I went to Switzerland with the premise that there is always someone a) worse than you and b) will mispunch or not finish the course on the day.
Any age, shape and size can be seen at the World Masters..ranging from new born babies of 35 yrs old to the grand daddy of them all who is over 95 and still going strong.
In the past couple of years they have brought in sprint qualification. There was not a great demand for it once but now most people compete in the short form of street O. Age classes are divided up into random groups/heats for qualification in La Chaux de Fonds at the heart of watchmaking Switzerland. At M50 (my class) there were 294 sprint competitors divided into groups of around 60. I was in heat 2 which was won by Jorgen Martensson (a former Norwegian elite). Despite a mistake in the middle part of the course I finished the 2.3 km in 18.29 which was enough for 27th place. (25 seconds quicker and I would have finished 20th!) This qualified me for the B final. The photo shows what happens when the Sport Ident system cannot manage the numbers of finishers...fortunately I was an early starter and avoided the queues that built up in the centre of the town.

Despite another error of interpretation near the finish in the final in the old streets of Neuchatel, I had a respectable run 16.08 and finished 49th out of 80. Tiny errors of judgement can cost many places but overall I was delighted with this.
The Long Distance Qualification races were much more challenging. The first day was 7.5 km at Les Breuleux. The many open runnable areas made the times fast if....and only if you did not make it a mistake. Relocation in the early part of the course was tricky. This cost me a wopping 24 minutes on 2 controls. I ended up in 44th out of 53 in my heat.
The second qualification took place at Les Cernets over the shorter distance 5.5km. More queues as they underestimated the time taken to transfer 6000 competitors up to the competition area by bus shuttle.
I had a marginally better run but still too many errors and finished 41st in my heat. Despite this, I ended up in the C Final which was a big improvement on the D Final four years ago in Austria.
After a rest day, the finals took place at Le Cernil.
This was to be my best run. Started off cautiously and used simple handrails and catching features to spike the first two controls. The 3rd control nearly proved my downfall as I lost 10 minutes in some harmless forest with plenty of tracks. Misread the tracks and had to relocate. From then until the end I had a near perfect run for me and caught up loads of places to finish 29th out of 83 in the C final. Next year I can look forward to moving up to the equally competitive M55 class.

It would be great if there was more Irish and specifically Waterford representation in Hungary next summer of in the Harz mountains in Germany in 2012. There are open events for younger age categories as well up to W18 and then open for other less competitive adults.

Orienteering in the Alps: Tyrol 2010

After a false start out of Waterford airport when Aer Arann in their infinite wisdom decided the flight was not taking off as they were unable to refuel it, the Cox family trekked off by car to the Italian Dolomites. Evening ferry out of Rosslare to Fishguard, arriving in the middle of the night, cross Britain to the Channel Tunnel. 7.30 a.m. train under the English Channel and arrived in France 35 minutes later. Autoroutes, autobahns and autostrada galore as I drove through the day into NE France, south of Stuutgart in Germany, around Munich and south to Innsbruck in Austria. Getting dusky by this stage as we crossed the Europa bridge and on through the Brenner Pass to Italy. Almost as far as Bolzano before entering the Eggetal where the first three days of the Tyrol 6 day Orienteering event was to be held.The event centre was a small village in the Dolomites called Deutschnofen. The first two days however were held close to the Karersee. A beautiful setting at over 1600 metres and some of the toughest orienteering that I have encountered. The image of the boulder does not tell the whole story...it was like being in the middle of a rock fall and the whole area being covered with dense vegetation...tricky detail!
No wonder they call the map, the Labyrinth.












After 3 days of sweltering heat on the Italian side of the border, we headed north to Innsbruck and the Wipptal.
The rest day featured an evening sprint race in Fulmes
at the end of the famous valley which has the Stubai Glacier at the upper end.

Days 4 and 5 involved getting a chairlift to the competition area. Despite the very steep run in to the finish, it was more normal forest for the most part.



The final day was at the scenic Oberbergersee with a mixture of runnable forest and some technical rockfall areas.

Final SE League Standings

Producing League positions proved more difficult than expected. There is a standard programme to calculate these but the following problems arose.
1. competitors using abbreviated forms of their names
2. Munster League events provide 6 colour coded courses so that there is a crossover between light green, red and green.
3. Age categories change on January 1st which means some youngsters move up to a harder course.
4. Family groups are to be encouraged but makes it difficult to work out which youngsters merit prizes.

Blue Course: 1. Pat/Patrick Coady. 2. Willie Fitzgerald
Green Course: 1. Liam O'Brien. 2. Steve Hogan
Light Green Course: 1. Sue Pim. 2. Jonathan Pim
Red Course: the Counihans: Charlotte, Sophie and William
Yellow Course: 1. Emma Pim

Anyone who has not yet collected their prize (book token) should see me at the next event.