3ROC News 27th April 2016

Off to the Irish Championships this weekend! WatO are putting on an ambitious programme of sprint, middle, classic and relay events, with an event centre at Mount Melleray where there will be accommodation, meals, social activities, a table quiz and the IOA AGM.

The weekend starts off with the sprint at the Waterford Institute of Technology, where the controller is 3ROC’s Frank Martindale. Will Darren Burke again be the fastest Irish man and Leinster Champion Niamh O’Boyle be the leading lady? Will the 3ROC M21’s Colm Moran and Eoin McCullough run fast enough to feature on the podium?

Saturday sees the middle distance championships at Coumshingaun in the Comeragh Mountains (see left) with elephant-sized boulders on the open mountainside. Shorter courses but still plenty of climb, and cold with showers – just what we need for IOC! Eoin finished 6th in a French middle distance championship race last weekend, less than 30 seconds off 2nd place, so maybe he’s a good prospect for this Middle Distance race. At least we hope there won’t be heavy snow like we had when we ran IOC at Carlingford back in 1993 …

Sunday’s classic race is at Mahon Falls, close to Coumshingaun: more open mountainside: will our former Irish Champion Andrew Quin, back from Sweden for the Championships, manage another win in M21 Elite?

Monday’s relays at Ballysaggertmore near Lismore, where the two 3ROC teams in the Handicap 6 and 12 classes hope to do well. A smaller number of 3ROC runners than expected are running at IOC, particularly in the relays, so we don’t have as many teams as usual this year.

Good luck to everyone! Follow the action at ioc2016.net here.