Ajax Orienteering & Hill Running Club

It's WWR 'time of year' again and as usual Ajax have entered a team for this challenging event on Sat. June 9th. We fielded two teams last year but this involved people running two legs and drafting in a few orienteers from outside the club. Our teams finished a creditable 10th and 16th.

This year we've only one team but as everyone will only be running one leg we should be well placed to improve last year's results.

The team and running order are:

Leg 1: Andrew McCarthy
Leg 2: Paul Smyth
Leg 3: Catherine King
Leg 4: Fiona O'Brien
Leg 5: John Casey
Leg 6: Marcus Geoghegan
Leg 7: Brendan O'Brien
Leg 8: Mike Long

Hats off to Mike Long for organising our entry and acting as 'unofficial' team manager. Logistically the WWW is a bit of a nightmare and Mike has done a great job of coordinating everything.

Niall Ewan, whom you've no doubt seen blazing around events wearing our very snazzy new O-gear has been selected to run for Ireland at the forthcoming European Youth Orienteering Championships in Hungary at the end of June. We wish Niall the very best for the competition and we're delighted to announce that Ajax will be providing a grant to Niall to assist with the cost of attending this prestigious event.

In fact this is just the start of a new effort by Ajax to support it's juniors. More details to follow in a few weeks...

(Photo: courtesy of Martin Flynn)

Only a small band from Ajax made it to the Irish Champs. in Fermanagh last month, which is a pity since it was an great event and the fine weather and excellent organisation only added to the enjoyment. Despite such small numbers we still bagged quite a few prizes over the two days.

Top of the list of achievements must be Cathal O'Cleirigh's first place on both days in M10A. Well done Cathal! Aonghus, (Cathals proud dad) was first in M45L on day one followed by 2nd. in the medium distance the next day. Marcus Geoghegan took 2nd. place in the M40L classic distance event while Ed. Niland took 3rd. and 2nd. place respectively in M21 over the two days. Well done everyone!

The prizes were quite unusual and very attractive (shown above), a nice addition to the winners shelves.