Nominations Open for 2019 Orienteer of the Year Competitive Awards
The Competitive Award Program’s goals are to recognize and reward outstanding competitive accomplishments by U.S. orienteers at the end of every year.
The Program Committee is currently soliciting
nominations from Orienteering USA membership for athletes and teams who
demonstrated outstanding performance during the 2019 national and
international orienteering season. As usual, the Committee is looking
for nominees in several different award categories, listed below. The
winners will be selected by the Committee and will receive prizes and
recognition. In certain cases, honorable mention will be made for
deserving athletes. A list of past winners is included at the end of
this announcement.
This year, once again, there will be voting by
you, members of Orienteering USA, for the athletes who have been
nominated. After the nominations are received, the Committee will select
several finalists in each award category. Each member of Orienteering
USA will then be able to vote online for one nominee in each category.
The committee will then use the results of the voting to help determine
the winners of the awards. It is expected that the voting will be a
dominant factor in the committee’s decision.
In addition to public recognition, the winner of each of the individual awards will receive a $500 stipend to be used on orienteering expenses during 2020. The honorable mention winners will receive a $100 stipend. The 2019 stipends have been made possible thanks to a very generous donor.
Nominations are open now and will close on Friday, November 15th. See below for the description of the awards, eligibility rules, and where to send nominations. Nominate an outstanding athlete or team and, in a few sentences, state why your nominee deserves the award.
The awards:
1. Orienteer of the Year is awarded to the best USA orienteer in 2019, based on results at national and international events.
2.
Junior Orienteer of the Year is awarded to the best USA orienteer no
older than 20 in 2019, based on results at national and international
events.
3. Comet of the Year is awarded to the most improved USA
orienteer in 2019, based on results at national and international
events.
4. Orienteering Team of the Year is awarded to the best
USA national or club orienteering team in 2019, based on results at
national and international events.
Eligibility rules:
To be awarded any of the individual awards a nominee has to be a USA citizen and must be a member of Orienteering USA in good standing during the current calendar year. Additionally, for the Junior Orienteer of the Year award, the nominee must be no older than 20 at the end of 2019. To be selected to the Orienteering Team of the Year award, all team members have to be Orienteering USA members and represent the U.S. or an Orienteering USA member club in competition. Competitors in any forms of orienteering are eligible, including Foot-O, Ski-O, Mt.Bike-O, Trail-O, and ROGAINE.
The committee making final selections from among those who are nominated includes Ken Walker Sr, Jeff Saeger, Sue Grandjean, Boris Granovskiy and Linda Kohn (chair).
Please send nominations (due November 15th) for any or all of the awards, along with a brief discussion of why the nominee deserves to win, to Linda Kohn.