IOC 2000

(Disclaimer: Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, in this report is purely coincidental).

It is twenty three years since the Irish Championships was in the Slieve Blooms but Bawnreagh provided a similar area and a similar map to the 1977 event.

The choice of venues is an indictment of the Leinster orienteering clubs who failed to see the potential of the areas under their noses and left the Slieve Blooms and Tullamore to be mapped by the men from the City of the Tribes, invading the lush lands to the east of the Shannon.

Bawnreagh forest, not far from Mountrath, was the venue for the Individual on Sunday April 30th. Rather like Kinnitty, with gullies, streams and (lots of) drains, the forest provided classic 1970's-style orienteering. Colm Rothery, just back from World Cup races in Australia, won the Men's title again and Toni O'Donovan repeated her win in the women's race. Aislinn Austin (W18), Ruth Lynam and Eileen Loughman (both Veterans) were the only other runners in the Women's Elite but to have only four competitors does suggest that the event needs an injection of something. Prestige? Money? Sumptuous prizes?

There may have been only four women in the Elite, but one more was not too far away: Lady Luck: my impression was that if you hit the controls dead on you were OK, but if you had to search around to relocate you could be in trouble. As one competitor said to me, "the course was too good for the map". Perhaps one should try the Scandinavian method of preparation and spend more time running on maps drawn by the mapper for the particular event in order to learn how he sees the terrain.

While there may be better areas in the country, the ones used for IOC were more than adequate. Any shortfall was mostly in the area of information. Before the so-called information age, it was normal to get some pre-event information: how to get to the competition, course details, start lists and so on. Nowadays an e-mailed start list must be adequate for an Irish Championships, since that's all we got - with electronic timing - there are no control cards to be sent out. I disagree: particularly with the Irish Championships, there is a need to make sure that the competitors are properly informed about basic things like how far that start is, where the event will be signposted from, course lengths and trivial little things like the fact that the road on the map down beside the last control is in fact a fence or how to find the floor space accommodation in Tullamore. But I digress ...

Monday's Relay at Charleville Estate, Tullamore was fast but not furious. Some of the courses were too long for the runners and problems with the electronic results meant that there were no results of any kind and no attempt to keep spectators informed of the progress of the race. A great changeover area, excellent toilets and a lovely setting went some way towards redeeming the situation, however. The area was a mixture of forest and farmland (some with sheep, some with new crops) with the sun blazing down. Once again, the mapping was a bit idiosyncratic but it was a good area for a relay if not too technical. The southern part of the area (gained by going through a tunnel shown as a bridge on the map) was super, though a gully/earthbank looking like an index contour caught out some. AJAX (Colm Rothery, Brendan O'Brien and John Feehan who placed 1, 2, 3 yesterday) won the men's race from NWOC; LVO (Violet Cordner, Heather Ervine and Ann Savage) won the women's after the Cork O team were disqualified when Irish Champion Toni O'Donovan apparently failed to register at a simple control on a path end.

I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that the results are still a bit confused so I can't publish the other class winners. - maybe in the next issue. Noel Donagh, the mastermind behind the results processing, was quick to blame himself for the mess: evidently the start times were entered in the wrong format and one of the SI card clearing units at the start wasn't working. I feel that the cards should have been cleared by the organisers before handing them out, or at least there should have been a check on every one as at the JK the week before. Anyway, we live and learn.

One of the most dramatic recoveries of the day was Liam O'Brien who took an early morning swim in the Grand Canal (complete with clothes, sleeping bag and all his worldly goods) but went on to win the Open 40+ relay with CorkO.

At the end of the day, I'm sure the best orienteers won and Connacht are to be congratulated for their hard work in putting on the event. Now where are next year's Championships?

JMcC