Well done to all our members who participated at IOC 2014
Post date: May 07, 2014 12:23:4 AM
Congratulations to all our club members who participated in a busy and exceptionally challenging weekend of orienteering at this year's Irish Orienteering Championships. CorkO had 35 members in action at the four orienteering events which were part of this years championships weekend. Thanks to Great Eastern Navigators and Setanta Orienteering Club for organising a great weekend of orienteering.The weekend's orienteering events commenced with the Sprint Championships which took place on the North Campus at NUI Maynooth. The pace was fast on this pleasant terrain and results proved that every second really does count in Sprint O as CorkO's Darren Burke missed out on claiming the Irish Sprint Orienteering title by a slim margin of two seconds.
Day two was the Middle Distance race at Glenealo/Camaderry which was open mountainside south and east of the Turlough Hill reservoir in the Wicklow Mountains National Park. This area is around 600m above sea level and the fog which descended on the competition area on the day added to the difficult of navigating on this open terrain. Thankfully the fog did clear at times which permitted competitors brief glimpses of the spectacular area.
The Classic Distance race took place on day three on the Lough Firrib map which was south and west of the Turlough Hill reservoir. The weather deteriorated even further on day three and the fog which engulfed the whole competition area didn't clear at all throughout the event which made navigation even more challenging than the Middle Distance event. Just completing your course in these conditions proved an achievement in itself. However despite the conditions CorkO's Marcus Pinker managed to clinch the M21 Elite title by a margin of just three seconds.
The fourth and final day of the Irish Championships was the Relay Championships at Glenreemore Valley which comprised a mix of runnable forest and steep open mountainside. Thankfully the conditions were much improved and it was a welcome change to be able to see the expanse of open terrain and the features on the map. CorkO had ten Rebel teams in action on relay day and the Rebel Racers and Rebel All Round teams secured championship titles in the Handicap 6 and Handicap 18 categories.
Action Photography snapped lots of the action over the four days and plenty of CorkO members proved very photogenic. You can check out the photos here.
Special mention to all those CorkO members who managed to achieve podium finishes over the weekend.....well done all!
Sprint Championships - NUI Maynooth
M16 Cameryn Kelly Morrish 3rd
M21 Darren Burke 2nd
M50 Colm O’Halloran 2nd
Middle Distance - Glenealo/Camaderry
M21E Darren Burke 3rd
M21L Agris Kramins 2nd
M35L Danny O’Hare 2nd
M50L Brian Corbett 1st
M50L Colm O’Halloran 3rd
W21S Elaine Sheridan 1st
W45L Deirdre Ni Challanain 1st
W45L Eadaoin Morrish 2nd
W55L Liz Deane 3rd
Classic Distance - Lough Firrib
M14 Frank O’Brien 3rd
W16A Norah O’Brien 1st
W21S Elaine Sheridan 3rd
W45L Deirdre Ni Challanain 2nd
W45L Eadaoin Morrish 3rd
M21E Marcus Pinker 1st
M40L John Chandler 2nd
M45S Gerald Duffy 3rd
M50L Brian Corbett 1st
M50L Colm O’Halloran 2nd
M60L Liam O’Brien 2nd
Relays - Glenreemore
Open Premier Rebel Rebels 2nd (Shane Lynch, Darren Burke and Marcus Pinker)
Handicap 6 Rebel Racers 1st (John Chandler, Brian Corbett, Colm O’Halloran)
Handicap 18 Rebel All Round 1st (Bobby O’Connor, Denis Power and Liam O’Brien, pictured above)
Handicap 18 Rebel Rocks 3rd (Liz Deane, Mary Curran and Donal Burke)