Jonathan Quinn wins M14 in the Sprint, Jack Millar 2nd Overall in M16A.
JK 2010, Devon:
Day 1 Sprint - Bicton College near Exeter
Day 2 - Cookworthy
Day 3 - Braunton Burrows on the North coast
Day 4 Relay - Braunton Burrows
Irish Juniors Overall Results are here
Sprint Results here
Welcome to the mudfest was the greeting as the buses arrived at Day 2 of the JK, & it was no exaggeration. The assembly field and the forest were covered with mud & visibly sinking deeper as the day went on. The vague & complicated info on bussing warned us of a stressful prelude parking & getting to the assembly field . The orienteering was quite fun though not hugely technical, it was important & not so easy to keep your map clean, one junior resorted to the water station to wash the mud off his map.
In fact mud seemed to be a theme, the Sprint near Exeter on the Friday was notable for sticky red mud, anyone thinking “Sprint means wear runners” was at a severe disadvantage. There was an interesting mix of styles, forest with paths, fields with fences, standard sprint building. But mud didn’t deter some of the Irish Juniors, in particular Jonathan Quinn who ran through to an impressive win in M14. Other Juniors in the top 10 in the Sprint were Clodagh Moran 3rd W10, James Millar 7th M12, Ciaran Kearns 9th M10, Niamh Corbett 9th W16, Jack Millar 10th M16, & Kevin O’Boyle 10th M20E.
The mudfest on Day 2 suited some Irish Juniors too, with Jack taking 3rd in M16A, Jonathan featuring again with 8th M14, & Conor Short 9th in M18E.
But on Easter Sunday the sun came out, the orienteering moved to the almost mud-free sand dunes of Braunton Burrows. Ideal sand dunes with 5m contours and reasonably visible features, but “an area of conservation combined with an army training area” The military tracks were mapped but we were warned they were unreliable – it might have been better not to map them, as well as being unreliable they obscured the contours. Many were caught out, but several Juniors were up to the challenge. Jack Millar ran well to move up a place into second overall in M16A, a great result against tough opposition. Kevin O’Boyle M20E & Sean Knight M18E improved on their Day 1 positions to take 7th & 10th respectively overall. Cliona McCullough had a very good 6th place in W16A.
Some of the younger juniors did well, Clodagh Moran was 5th overall in W10A, while Ciaran Kearns was one better with 4th in M10. James Millar came in 10th in M12A. Ciara Fitzgerald had a good result on Day 2 with 6th W12A.
In the B/Short classes there were a number of Irish Junior successes, most notably James Griffin winning M18S, while Roisin Long & Eadaoin McCavana were 2nd in W14B & W12B respectively, and Jurik Schellekens took 3rd in M14B.
The Relays were also on Braunton Burrows with the same familiar assembly & run-in. Colm Moran, Cliona & Eoin McCullough running for 3ROC in the Ad Hoc relay made it onto the podium in 2nd place, Cathal O’Cleirigh, Ruairi & Roisin Long were 5th in M/W40-. Featuring in Men’s Trophy teams were Kevin & Conor (CNOC 14th), Cillin Corbett (CorkO 18th), Alex Simonin & Josh O’S Hourihan (BOC 27th)
Niamh O’Boyle who does a lot of work for the Squad had probably the best Irish result of the weekend with 4th in W21E. Niamh is organising the by now regular Junior Squad Fundraising Quiz at the Irish Champs.