Autumn League #2: Regional Park Ballincollig Tuesday September 2nd Results and Report

Post date: Sep 03, 2014 11:37:47 PM

The Regional Park, Ballincollig was the destination for the second event in the Cork Orienteering club Autumn league. The lovely fresh autumnal evening attracted large numbers to the park to avail of the many amenities on offer. Among these masses were some 65 orienteers, eager to complete this year’s Autumn league.These keen competitors converged in the park early on the evening and we would like to apologise for the slight delay in getting started and thank everyone for their patience. It was lovely to see so many participants proudly wearing their Summer League finishers t-shirts. If you haven’t collected your t-shirt yet you can check out the style of this year’s t-shirt as modelled by many of the entrants at Tuesday’s event in the Ballincollig album on the gallery page of our website:www.corko.net/galleryThe delayed started meant that contestants were more bunched than normal on the courses so I'm sure several competitors were literally chasing their rivals around the park. This is always an extra motivator to run harder and try and out smart your challengers with clever route choices.On both the Advanced and Explorer courses several of the early starters enjoyed a slight advantage when heading to the first control as the soccer matches hadn't commenced on the pitches and this allowed them take the straight line route. Unfortunately, the later starters had to negotiate their way around the pitches to avoid interfering with these games. Many of the other legs on the advanced course offered plenty of opportunities for some varied routes most notably the legs from 1 to 2 and from 11 to 12.

This week saw a return to the old style manual pin punches and judging by the control cards I'm sure many wasted valuable time precisely aligning the punches in the correct boxes! Some wrist flexing and rough alignment was required for fast punching. On the Advanced course the legs from control three through five many have tempted some to punch the controls out of sequence but we trust no one yielded to this temptation!On the 4.6km Advanced course the finish times were exceptionally close with a mere 47 seconds separating the top four finishers. This week a few people finally managed to get the better of Cillin Corbett and deny him not just the event win but also any of the podium spots. Perhaps Cillin’s weakness in pin punching! It was Jonathan Lucey who showed great pace, cunning route choice and efficient punching technique to attain the event win. He completed the course in a time of 27:41 and had just 27 seconds to spare over runner-up Conrad Daly. There were also a few contenders hot on Conrad’s heels and there was a very tight contest for the final podium spot. John Scannell managed to deny Cillin Corbett this honour when he finished the course in a time of 28:25 just three seconds ahead of Cillin.The fastest lady on the night was Elaine Sheridan who punched all 13 controls in a time of 36:40. The runners-up spot went to Trishia O’Mahony who completed the course in a time of 38:15. Third place honours went to Deirdre Mannix who finished in a time of 42:17.On the Explorer course David Moylan demonstrated impressive speed when he completed the course in 26 minutes. This ensured him the event win. There wasn't much separating second and third on the night and it was Eric Stam who took the runners up spot with a time of 40:55. The final podium spot when to Andrew Murphy who finished the course in a time of 41:35.Well done to all who participated on the night. Full individual results are available here.

Thanks to Rob McEvoy for planning the courses and to Donal Burke for organising the event. Thanks also to Dave O'Donovan and Deirdre Mannix for helping with starts and Liam O'Brien, Bobby O’Connor and Gerald Duffy for taking care of control collection.

Special thanks also to BVOC for the use of their kites and punches.