NI Score Champs and Night Champs

The Northern Ireland Score and Night Championships took place at Crawfordsburn on the 21 Feb. This was a great day of orienteering.  The Junior Champions are Rachael Collins and Peter Reed (Score) and Andrew Elwood and Sophie Pruzina (Night). Well done to them. The event also saw the issuing of Silverware from the NI Champs in late 2014. Some juniors also took part in training at Drum Manor earlier in the week. This was a great opportunity to get some top class coaching and everyone enjoyed themselves  

Compass Capers

Our Junior Squad had a great afternoon out at Barnett’s Park practicing compass work. This session required our team to be able to locate the control flag on several courses in which elements of the map detail had been removed. This needed accurate compass work. As did the very tricky corridor exercise that they were tasked with completing at the end. All of this followed a time trial preparation run as the warm up. A big thank you goes to Steph P for planning a great session. We also had a number of beginners at the training who got the Read More …

Junior Training Sunday 15 Feb Technical Compass Use – Barnett’s Park

Our next training event will be at Barnetts Park on the 15 Feb. This event will focus on better use of the compass. This session will require you to complete exercises as follows: Holes – Find the control when the circle around each control circle, as well as the control circle itself, is blank. Donuts – Move from one control to the next when only a circular area surrounding each control is mapped but each control circle is blank. Blocks – Move between control circles using compass bearings when much of the map detail has been totally removed between the Read More …

Meelmore Contour Training

The junior squad, as well as a number of adults, took to the hills at Meelmore to practice the use of contours as a navigation aid. It was a great sunny day but snow still lay on the ground as well as a lot of ice. The rivers were cold as well if you fell in!!. This was an excellent opportunity to get those cobwebs blown away after the festive season. It was also ideal training for the Lisburn O Festival in May as the races there will include Slieve Croob.

Junior Training For 2015

The list of Junior Training events for 2015 are now available. Get them in your diary soon to avoid disappointment.

Map Memory Training

The squad finished this year’s training off with a tough map memory session at Musgrave Park, all planned by Billy. We started with some star exercises during which you had to look at a small map showing a single control, work out a route, memorise that route and then run to the control and back. Following this each junior had to complete three courses that required them to remember the legs as they went round the course. This was made even more difficult in that the control markers were small bits of paper and not the usual orienteering flag. This Read More …

Next Junior Training Event

The next junior training event will be held at Musgrave Park on the 30 Nov and will concentrate on map memory skills. We will meet at 1.30 pm. Be sure not to miss out.

Junior Inter Regional Championships Roundup

Over the weekend 27/28 Sep 14 a team of 11 NI juniors travelled to take part in the Junior Inter Regional Championships in Cumbria, England. Two adults, Alan Elwood and Steph Pruzina, accompanied the team. One member of the LVO squad, Rachel Collins, was unable to attend due to breaking her arm the night before departure. She was greatly missed, as she has been a stalwart of the LVO Junior Development Squad and is a talented athlete.  It also meant there was no NI female relay team, although the remaining females got to run in an ad hoc team. The Read More …

JIRCs Team Members Get Practicing

Some members of the NI JIRCs team, Rachel, Peter and Andrew, along with Luke, took part in some training at Lady Dixon in preparation for the competition in the Lake District in England. This was a final opportunity to hone all the skills and techniques that we have been practicing all year prior to the tough races to come. Each junior was shadowed by a coach and had to be able to visualise the control sites, select the right technique for locating the site, work out the quickest route and have the precision to be able to pinpoint each control Read More …

Junior Inter Regional Champs

The NI team of 12 for the JIRCs has been selected and will depart for the Lake District on the 26 Sep to take part on the 2 days of competition. Day one is a tricky corse in the technical terrain of forest, mountain side and crags near Ulverston. Day two will be no easier with races occurring in the sand dunes near Barrow on Furness. It is promising to be an adventure with nights spent on the floors of school and church halls thrown in. More information will follow plus a round up after the event.