Pinker Purloins Ultimate Prize
FVO star Marcus Pinker upset the odds to take a big win in a major stage race, on familiar terrain in the south of Ireland.
The OO Cup is traditionally a mainland Europe event, moving around the Mediterranean basin for five days of competition, but organisers this year took the show to Killarney, linking it in with the local orienteering festival, and this was very much to Marcus's benefit, as he grew up in nearby Cork, and has lots of past experience on the terrain.
The M50 Ultimate competition had the added twist of the race maps being altered to remove all the paths, and Marcus and Latvian international Ivars Zagars went toe to toe across the races, and were more than an hour clear of 3rd place. Zagars had three wins to Pinker's two, but these were by seconds rather than three and four minutes in the Irishman's case, and it was the local man who took the overall title by more than six minutes in the end.
This may be the biggest scalp of Pinker's long career, as Zagars was world-ranked #1 at one point, and won the world Junior title in 1991 as the only Soviet Union athlete to do so.
There were a number of other local athletes on show, and Will Hensman bookended his week with a 2nd place in M45 on the first stage and a 3rd in the finale, ending in overall 5th place, while Rona Molloy came into things in W55 in the final races, where she was 6th and then 4th, helping her into the top 10. Joey Inch was in contention for a top 10 place in the same class, but a poor final race saw her drop back to 17th, while Cathy Tilbrook was 19th.
The Hensman family had three more athletes in the top 20 in their classes, as Susan was 12th in Open C, Katie was 14th in W20 and Lucy was 15th in W21AS, while Jonathan Molloy and Jon Cross battled injury all week in M55, but managed to finish all five stage, with Jonathan 44th of 99 athletes in the competition, and Jon 56th. Marie Clare Shankland didn't get an overall ranking as she retired in two races, but a 49th in the final stage was a nice end to the week as her best result.