Irelands Bobby Smyth competes at MTBO world champs

North West orienteer and new Ireland MTBO international Bobby Smyth has been competing in the World MTBO champs in Portugal over the past week.

This is Bobby's first taste of top flight MTBO competition and he has proven that he has quickly learnt the skills necessary to compete at the highest level.

Bobby competed in the 3 main distance races Sprint, Middle and the Long distance.

The Long distance qualifier was held today (Thursday 15th) The physical challenge of the weeks racing and training maybe took its toll as Bobby finished his race (Men B) in 31st place in a time of 2:15:56 for the 24.4km course (that's a straight line!)

Bobby had a solid ride in the 20.1km middle distance final finishing in a respectable 1:56:23 (86th) behind new World champion Samuuli Saarela of Finland who rode the course in 1:06:34.



The Highlight of the week for Bobby was finishing 69th in the technically challenging Sprint competition in a time of 31:31 only 9 minutes down on Aussie world champ Adrian Jackson. Bobby also was faster than a number of riders from Japan, Spain and Israel - Good news for the future!

Still to come for the other riders is the Relay competition - It would be great to see an Irish Relay team fighting it out in the coming World champs. Next year will be Italy.

Bobby will have a full report on his World champs week when he returns from Portugal.
Full reults and info can be found on the World MTBO champs website.

Irish WOC selection results

Irish 2010 WOC selection came to an exciting conclusion this weekend in the physically challenging forests north of Trondheim.
The Irish squad rubbed shoulders with the top scandinavians on their home turf and proved that they can more than hold their own at the World champs this year.

The weekend started with a very humid sprint race around the town of Verdal before the serious business of WOC qualification at the Craftcup. Saturday saw the Middle distance race with the physically challenging test of the long distance on Sunday.

Congratulations to Andrew Quin who was first of the Irish in the middle distance, completing the 5.5km course in 44.19, 25 seconds ahead of Nicolas Simonin with David Healy in third.
Niamh O’Boyle was 6 minutes quicker than Ciara Largey in the first of their head-to-head races.

On Sunday it was Nick who had the legs of the classic distance test, pipping Andrew by one and half minutes in a time of 2.13.42 on the 13.75km course which had the boys climbing at least the height of Carrauntoohill! David Healy grabbed his second third of the weekend.
The girls swapped positions with Ciara Largey gaining a win over Niamh by the slenderist of margins in an exciting race.

So as a valuable few days of WOC racing and training draw to an end and the majority of the squad head home we are getting a better picture of the final team to compete at WOC.
the final Irish WOC team will be announced later this week.

Thanks to the organising club Verdal Orienteeringsklub for their warm Norwegian welcome (and the lovely waffles!) A big thanks to the Long family of AJAX for all the help the have provided the senior squad in the build up to WOC.
Thanks also to the Irish orienteering association for the financial support they have given the senior squad.

Full event results etc. can be found on the Craftcup website.

Irish WOC hopefuls head for Trondheim

A large group of Irish senior squad members are gathering in Trondheim for this weekends WOC 2010 selection races. The selection races are being held at the Craftcup orienteering event in Norway. They will be competing
alongside some of the biggest names in Scandinavian orienteering who are also using Craftcup for national WOC selection.

Thursday will be spent training nearby, Friday evening is the sprint competition.
Saturday and Sunday see the main events, the Middle distance and Long distance selection races.

Live results can be viewed here: Full reports and photos to follow

Good luck to all the squad out there!