Autumn League #4: Fota House and Gardens Results and Report

The final event in the Cork Orienteering Autumn League took place on Tuesday evening at Fota House and Gardens. Despite some heavy showers in the early part of the day the evening cleared up nicely and the conditions remained dry for the duration of the event. The picturesque surrounds of Fota House always attracts a large orienteering crowd and this week’s event was no different. 64 individuals participated in our final mid-week orienteering event in our 2013 orienteering calendar.The training objective of this week’s Explorer course was to practice the three key orienteering skills.1) Thumb, your thumb is your location device so as you move along the course move your thumb to your current location on the map.

2) Orientate the map, make sure left and right on the map are the same as left and right on the ground.

3) Plan, don’t leave a control until you have a plan for how to get to the next control.

There was also one final Explorer quiz which further demonstrated these key techniques and had some more symbol matching exercises. If you missed it at the event you can download it here.

Although it was a little blustery on the night luckily all those participating on the Norwegian course didn't have to worry about their map blowing away! The Norwegian format is all about map memory at each control you see a map of your next leg which you must memorise and then navigate to the control where another map segment awaits. Some folks were nervous starting out on the Norwegian course fearing they were going to be out all night but based on the discussions afterwards all seems to enjoy the novelty of this format and mystery of not knowing where they were going to go next or when the course was going to end.

On the Norwegian course Jonathan Lucey continued his autumn league winning streak and was the event winner completing the course in a time of 21:38. Jonathan had three first place finishes in the league which was very steady navigating he and also demonstrate very good map memory. Second place in Fota went to Gary O’Donovan who finished with a time of 22:24. Dermot O’Sullivan claimed the final podium spot with a time of 23:56.

The fastest lady around the Norwegian course was Christine Maunsell she completed the 11 control course in a time of 30:36. Second place went to Elaine Sheridan who finished in a time of 35:33 and Helen Stone took third place with a time of 37:39.

On the Explorer course Tom Ryan achieved his second event win in the autumn league. He punched all 14 controls in a time of 26:29. Not far behind Tom was Thomas Manning who finished with a time of 26:54 and attained second place for his efforts. Third place on the night went to Deirdre Creedon who finished with a time of 27:13.

Well done to all who participated on the night. We hope you enjoyed the event. Full individual results and splits are available here.

We’d like to thank to Liam O’Brien and Willie Fitzgerald for organising the event. Thanks again to Rob McEvoy and Danny O’Hare for planning the courses and training exercises. Thanks also to Bobby O’Connor for helping out with starts and to the students from Midleton CBS who assisted with control collection. Possibly the most efficient control collect of the league!

Apologies to some of the early starters on the Norwegian course who almost got stuck in a loop as the second map segment at control one/six was missing.

A special thanks also to the OPW and Fota House and Gardens for allowing us access to this spectacular location for orienteering.

SPOT PRIZES

All those who completed two or more events in our Autumn league were eligible to be included in the draw for some spot prizes. There were over 60 names in the hat and the lucky orienteers who won spot prizes are as follows:

Mairead O’Donoghue

Ann Conroy

Mathew Kearney

Padraic Barrett

Colin Buckley

Mark Fogarty

Mary Leneghan

Irene O’Callaghan

Helen Stone

Orlagh O’Sullivan

Chiara Bosonnet

Gary O’Donovan

Jim O’Donovan

Tom Ryan

Joe Bosonnet

David Moylan

Sean Foley

You can collect your prize at any of our upcoming events.

NEXT EVENT

Going forward our events will now move to Sunday mornings and the next event in the CorkO calendar will take place at one of the summer leagues most popular locations – Doneraile Park on Sunday September 29th. Start times will be from 11am to 1pm. 

This event will be the eighth annual Cliona Callanan orienteering event. Cliona was a hugely talented young athlete who sadly passed away from Leukaemia eight years ago. Since then, this event has been held annually in her memory with all proceeds going to the Cork Children's Leukaemia Association.

This stunning orienteering location also has a large play ground and charming tea-rooms so it is sure to be a great day out and all for a great cause. You can view some footage of last year's event here: