3ROC’s Colm Moran at Junior World Champs
Colm at the JWOC Sprint race
Update 9th July: Colm finished second of the Irish M20’s in the long race today, in 94th place out of more than 180 runners. His teammate Conor Short had a fine run to finish 48th, while Josh finished 101st. Colm ran 102.02 for the gruelling 11.5 km course with 405 metres climb and 23 controls.
The team have a comparatively easy day tomorrow, with the model event for the middle distance and relay, and then the middle distance qualification race is on Wednesday.
Colm writes: Today a few of the Irish Juniors faced the Junior World Champs Long Distance course. 3 Irish runners competed on the tough mens course of 11.5km with 405m climb, through some very varied terrain including runnable white forest sections of thicker light green, and fast open with lots of uncrossable thicket areas, with many deep depressions in the karst landscape.
The course was won by Eskil Kinneberg of Norway in just under 70 mins, almost 2 mins ahead of Denmark’s Marius Thrane Odum. Conor Short placed the best out of the Irish, finishing 48th out of over 170 starters, with of a time of 88 mins.
This is Ireland’s best JWOC Long Distance results since 1993 (I think). Colm Moran, and Josh O’Sullivan-Hourihan finished 94th and 101st respectively, with times of 102 and 104 mins.
The races continue on Wednesday with the Middle Qualification. All 4 Irish
runners will compete, Áine McCann having opted to skip the Long to rest for the
Middle.
Be sure follow the action live at www.jwoc2012.sk on Wednesday morning!
The Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) is the biggest and
toughest competition for junior orienteers (M/W20). Ireland have a
4-member team competing this year in Slovakia.
Men: Colm Moran (3ROC), Conor Short (CNOC), Josh O’Sullivan-Hourihan (BOC)
Women: Aine McCann (LVO)
Colm and Conor have spent the last year training in Sweden and both of them had very good runs at the Jukola relay in Finland last month.
Interestingly, the Irish Ambassador to Slovakia is a former 3ROC member, Brian McElduff, who hopes to meet the team when they are there.
The racing action starts today with an urban sprint race in Kosice at 13:00 (Irish time). Irish start times are: Josh at 13:18, Colm at 14:13, Conor at 14:59 and Aine at 13:33. There will be live results on the JWOC homepage: www.jwoc2012.sk
You can also listen to the JWOC song (words here:
http://www.jwoc2012.sk/?page=anthem)…
Good luck Team Ireland!
www.jwoc2012.sk
Results update: In the Sprint Colm finished fastest of the Irish in 105th place out of about 180, with a time of 16.20.7 for 2.9 km, 2.14 down on the Russian winner. Aine was 108th in the women’s race, while Emma Klingenberg (Denmark) – who could run for Ireland as her mother is Irish – was 2nd. You will notice that in JWOC sprint races the timing is to one tenth of a second!
Conor Short writes: More the 300 competitors braved the 30° heat in Kosice for the JWOC sprint today with both races being won by a large margin in both the men’s and women’s categories.
Men, 2.9km
1. Gleb Tikhonov (Russia) 14.05,7
2. Jan Petrzela (Czech Republic) 14.23,0
105. Colm Moran (Ireland) 16.20,8
117. Conor Short (Ireland) 16.33,7
146. Josh O’Sullivan-Hourihan (Ireland) 17.47,7
Women, 2.3km
1. Tove Alexandersson (Sweden) 11.12,8
2. Emma Klingenberg (Denmark) 11.45,3
105. Ãine McCann (Ireland) 15.07,9.
It will be a long day tomorrow with the Long distance taking place. The first start is at 09:00 while the last will be close to 15:00. The Irish start times (in Slovakian time) are:
Colm 09:15
Josh 12:09
Conor 13:47
Áine has elected not to run in order to be in full shape for the Middle Qualifications on Wednesday.
As I type a thunderstorm is going on outside, so the wet conditions may be
an added advantage to the Irish!