Summer League #4: Regional Park Ballincollig Tuesday June 2nd Results and Report
Post date: Jun 04, 2015 8:33:50 AM
The Regional Park Ballincollig was the destination for the fourth event in the CorkO Summer League and after a long weekend of atrocious weather the fine fresh conditions on Tuesday evening drew almost 100 eager orienteers to the park. The park has undergone numerous changes since our last visit with the addition of a new playground, basketball courts and wild flower meadows to name but a few of the alterations. It seems this wonderful amenity is now more popular than ever and orienteers added to the mix of runners, walkers, joggers and football players who were all active in the park on Tuesday night.The flat parkland terrain with its vast network of paths meant that the courses were very buggy friendly and it was great to see so many families in attendance and enjoying this landscape. The event started from the middle car park and the bright red club tent signalled the event registration. The tent survived some rather stormy conditions on Monday on the Sheep’s Head peninsula during the final day of the 19th Shamrock O-Ringen and its walls which took some hammering from the driving wind and rain on the day could be seen spread along the ground near registration in an effort to dry them off.Tuesday’s event saw a return to the old style manual punching and several of our old school participants opted to pin their control card to their clothes to allow for fastest punching and to prevent misplacing it on the course. The Long course began by taking competitors to the Eastern section of the map where they got to see several of the ruined building which once formed part of the Gunpowder factory. The leg from 6 to 7 required careful observation of the crossing points on the canal. The course then headed west along the banks of the canal.
The leg from control 13 to 14 required competitors to navigate around a high wall. Although I believe some competitors didn't spot this detail on the map and having taken the direct route to this control opted to scale the wall rather than squander precious time going round it. Many of the legs in the Western section of the map had competitors traversing the soccer pitches and the pleasant smell of freshly cut grass greeted competitors on these routes.
Throughout the course the running was fast and in places some nimble foot work was necessary to avoid tripping up on the many roots which encroached on the paths. Following all the hard running competitors got to enjoy some light refreshments while conducting their post run analysis with their rivals. For some their Bank Holiday weekend antics took its toll on their performance on Tuesday night while for others their long weekend activities inspired them to some outstanding achievements in Ballincollig.
Following his absence from the event last week Josh O’Sullivan-Hourihan continued where he left off in Currabinny and claimed his third Summer League event win on Tuesday night. Josh was representing Ireland in the steeplechase event at the Intervarsity International in Belfast at the weekend and he showed no signs of tiredness from this competition as he completed the 5km course in a time of 29:15. If Josh keeps this form up it will make it very difficult for any of the chasers in the field to deny him the title of 2015 Summer League Champion. Let us hope he has some long holidays planned for the summer to give the rest of us a chance!
Over the last few months John Chandler has been busy with planning Day 2 of the Shamrock O-Ringen in Shrone Hill and hasn’t had an opportunity to attend any of the summer league events to date. However with the Shamrock behind him John made his summer league debut in the Regional Park Ballincollig and finished the course in a time of 33:53 which bagged him the runners up spot on the night.A hugely impressive run from Niamh Corbett saw her finish in a time of 35:04 which not only made her the fastest lady in the Regional Park Ballincollig on the night but also earned her third place in the overall results. Niamh completed three days of epic orienteering in challenging terrain and sometimes horrendous conditions in the W21E class at the Shamrock O-Ringen over the June Bank Holiday weekend. So this was her fourth consecutive day of orienteering and she really took it in her stride and stormed around the park in Ballincollig. She held off the challenge from Zac O’Sullivan-Hourihan who most likely had an extra spring in his step after winning the M18 class at the Shamrock.As stated already Niamh Corbett was the fastest lady around the parkland terrain in Ballincollig. The runners up honour in the ladies section went to Trishia O’Mahony who punched all 18 controls in a time of 42:10. The final podium spot went to Elaine Sheridan who finished the course in a time of 46:23.On the Short course Matthew Kearney made it four wins from four events when he completed the Short course in a time of 21:33. With just five competitive events left in this year’s league it will be exceptionally difficult for anyone to equal Matthew’s achievement and he is presently looking like the firm favourite for the 2015 title of Short Course Champion. Liam Twomey claimed the runners-up spot on the night punching all 9 controls in 24 minutes and 24 seconds. Zane Kramina was third on the night when she completed the course in a time of 25:51.Well done to all who attended the event. Full individual results are available here.We've also added some photos from the event to the gallery page of our website which can be viewed here.
Huge thanks to Deirdre Murphy and Gerald Duffy for planning and organising the event. Thanks also to Cathal Turner for his assistance at registration and to Dave O’Donovan for taking care of starts. We also appreciated the assistance from Dermot Gallagher with control collection.
We would like to express our gratitude to Cork County Council for giving us permission to use the park for this event.
Next week will see us travel a bit further West to Warrenscourt Wood near Lissarda for the fifth event in the Summer League. It has been a number of years since our last Summer League visit to this area and no doubt the forest will have changed somewhat in this time. As a result many of our regular summer league followers will face new navigational challenges in this wood. Further woodland trivia and directions are available here.
We hope you will join us next week for some more Summer League orienteering action.