Keep in touch this summer ...

You can keep in touch with all the international orienteering activity this summer on the internet. Irish orienteers are taking part in competitions across Europe, in countries including Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, France and the UK. We've already had teams at the European Youth Champs and the Junior World Champs.

For the Swedish 5-Day O-Ringen (July 24-30) , see here.

For the French 3-Day in Besancon (July 23-25), see here.

For the World Masters Orienteering Championships in Switzerland from July 31 - August 7, see here.

For the World Orienteering Championships in Norway (August 8-15) see here. (next year it's in France in mid-August). The Irish Senior Squad blog is here. The Irish Elite page (with team profiles etc) is here.

For the Lakes 5-Day in England (22 - 27 August), see here.

And please don't forget to write about it when you get home!

For IOA Fixtures at home, see here; for Northern Ireland fixtures see here.

Have a great summer.

Niamh Corbett finishes 4th in Europe!

Cork Orienteers' Niamh Corbett finished 4th in the W16 race at the European Youth Orienteering Championships at Soria in Spain yesterday. The 14 year old demolished the opposition with a time of 49.25, just 4 minutes down on the winner, Katerina Chromá of the Czech Republic and 31 seconds down on third-placed Lucy Butt of Great Britain.
Reports suggest that the conditions were very warm (about 30 degrees)  with sunshine, thunder, lightning and rain. The W16 course is here. The courses had a tricky long leg up across a slope towards the end (6-7 on the W16).
You can see the full results here, and maps and routes here.

Irish results were
W16 (76)
4 Niamh Corbett
58 Cliona McCullough

M16 (86)
20 Alex Simonin
32 Jack Millar
62 Laurence Quinn
65 Mark Stephens

M18 (94
76 Josh O'Sullivan-Hourihan
85 Colm Moran
90 Cillin Corbett

In today's Relays the M16's finished a very good 14th place, just behing France, beating the British team for the second year running. Jack Millar ran a fantastic first leg, coming in in 6th place, ahead of eventual winners Denmark, second place Latvia and third place Russia. Niamh finished 10th on Leg 1 of the W16 relay. Relay results are here.

Here are some more photos of the team in action.

International Action

Irish orienteers are in action across Europe at the moment: let's hope they get as much fun from orienteering as the lad in Sweden on the left!

The Elite squad have been taking part in the Nordic O-Tour and are now ready for the World Championships selection races in Norway. You can follow their fortunes here.

The Junior World Championships team are at JWOC at Aalborg in Denmark. The Sprint is on Monday and it finishes with the Relay on Saturday 10th July. The team is Conor Short, Seán Knight, Niall Ewen. Read about it here.

The European Youth O-Championships team are at EYOC at Soria in Spain. The Long Distance race is on Friday July 2nd, Relay on Saturday and Sprint on Sunday.

The Irish team selected for EYOC 2010 in Soria, Spain is:

M18: Cillin Corbett, Colm Moran, Josh O'Sullivan-Hourihan

W16: Niamh Corbett, Cliona McCullough

M16: Jack Millar, Laurence Quinn, Alex Simonin, Mark Stephens

Read about it and follow the live action here.

Good luck to you all!