Seven members of the Irish Junior Squad were at the Spring Cup event Denmark on 24-26 March. Brian Armstrong,
Andrew Campbell, Seamus O'Boyle, Francis O'Reilly, Fiach O'Rourke, Ruairi Short travelled from Ireland accompanied by
Darren Burke, Ailbhe Creedon, Ruth Lynam, while Nick Simonin travelled with his Swedish club OK Tisaren.
With its theme song 'Spring Cup...Orienteers wake up' this is the start of the season and
usually the first good snow-free run for the Scandinavians. This year however there was still 6 inches or so of
snow in the forests, which for the Irish took a little getting used to, but which certainly improved the non-orienteering
activities.
The Spring Cup consists of 3 events - NightO, Classic and Relay, and with the World
Champs being held in Denmark in August there was a great turn out and plenty of opportunity for elite-spotting. Simone
Luder SWI won the D21E Classic by 4 minutes, and Matthias Merz SWI had a 20 sec. margin in the H21E race.
Altogether there were about 2500 competitors but with the usual good planning the Scandinavian forests were able to absorb
them all.
Night Sprint
H17-20E: 1 Johan Aronsson SWE 34.35, 58 Seamus O'Boyle IRL 49.08, 72 Ruairi Short IRL 53.57, 93 Fiach O'Rourke IRL 91.20
Classic
H20E: 1 Jan Benes CZE, 50.30, 83 Seamus O'Boyle IRL 74.27
H17-18E: 1 Erik Liljequist 45.55, 64 Nick Simonin SWE/IRL 56.52, 113 Ruairi Short IRL 69.10,
120 Fiach O'Rourke IRL 82.10, 121 Francis O'Reilly IRL 82.20, 122 Andrew Campbell IRL 99.10
H18A: 1 Robin Johansson SWE 50.32, 27 Brian Armstrong 109.20
Relay
With 5 M18's we had only 1 competitive relay team: Ruairi Short, Francis O'Reilly and Fiach
O'Rourke were 27th in M18.
Ruth Lynam
