April 2022 - Orienteering USA

2022 JWOC Team Announced

The JWOC Selection Committee (Tori Borish, Greg Ahlswede and Jon Torrance) is pleased to announce the 2022 US Team selected to compete at the Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) to be held July 10-16 in Aguiar da Beira, Portugal.

Women:
Alexis Merka
Anna Campbell
Bridget Hall
Kirsten Mayland
Lily Addicott
Zoe Sibthorp
Annika Mihata (1st alternate)
Oriana Riley (2nd alternate)

Men:
Benjamin Brady
Holden Sopoti
Keegan Harkavy
Victor Frolenko

National Team member Evalin Brautigam, Head Coach & Teacher at Orienteering South Australia, will accompany the team to Portugal in the role of head coach.

Congratulations to all our 2022 JWOC athletes!

National Team adds two new members

The National Team Executive Steering Committee (ESC) is pleased to announce the addition of two new athletes to the Junior Squad roster.

Oriana Riley from the Delaware Valley Orienteering Association is currently attending Stanford University. She has been competing consistently this year at the Georgia O-Fest in January including the Sprint WRE in F-21+, the Big Woods Classic NRE in March and most recently the West Point NRE held this past weekend in New York where she took part in the WOC Team Trials in F-21+. She is currently nationally ranked 6th in F-20.

Zoe Sibthorp from the Cascade Orienteering Club joins Oriana on the Junior Squad and currently attends Woodinville Montessori High School in Washington. Zoe is currently ranked 5th in F-20 having recently competed at the Lighthouse Middle NRE in February and the OUSA Junior Nationals in early April.

Congratulations to both of you and we look forward to your continued success as members of TeamUSA!!

42nd Annual West Point NRE Recap

April 23-24, 2022

Host: United States Military Academy Orienteering Club
Event Website
Event Director: CDT Edgardo “Eddie” Cruz
Registrar: CDT Gregory Kies
OUSA Course Consultant: Jordan Laughlin
Course Setters:
- Middle: CDT Paul Bruce
- Sprint: CDT Neal Anderson
- Long: CDT Corrigan Railey
AttackPoint Event Listing – including split analysis

OUSA Seeks Volunteers for Key Program Roles

Youth Mapping Program Outreach Coordinator

The Youth Mapping Program (YMP) Committee is seeking volunteer(s) who would be willing to help us with outreach to identify new schools and non-profit youth organizations who would be interested in a map. This role involves:

Identifying organizations with missions and terrain that align with YMP opportunities. In particular, organizations with terrain that supports mapping from a distance (i.e. open areas rather than dense forests), or that is near a YMP mapper’s location. Don’t worry – no mapping expertise is necessary.
Publicizing opportunities and contacting organizations to get them excited about trying orienteering
Connecting them with other Orienteering USA (OUSA) assets (list of local clubs, education website, etc)
Following up with organizations who have received YMP created maps, in order to generate stories of their map use, to be used by the National Communications Manager to further publicize and grow the program

For more information about the Youth Mapping Program, see the Youth Mapping Program page on the OUSA website. Interested people should contact the YMP Committee at YMPCommittee@nullorienteeringusa.org.

OUSA Rankings Coordinator

After many, many years of volunteer service maintaining the US foot orienteering rolling rankings, OUSA’s longtime rankings coordinator Valerie Meyer has decided to step aside. OUSA therefore stands in need of one or more people to do the work of keeping the rankings updated as National Ranking Event (NRE) results come in.

The required qualifications are modest – passable computer literacy, including basic skills in using spreadsheet software, and access to Microsoft Excel are really all that is required, given a willingness to put in one to two hours work in the aftermath of every event including one or more NREs (perhaps more for particularly well-attended events or events with a lot of participants new to the rankings, e.g Junior Nationals).

If that sounds like you and keeping the OUSA rankings system going is something you think would give you a warm glow, please contact VP of Competition Jon Torrance at jon.torrance@nullorienteeringusa.org.

Volunteers sought for The World Games

The World Games are coming to the US in a little over 3 months and will feature three elite orienteering events – Middle, Sprint and Sprint Relay. 20 nations will each field a four person team (2 men, 2 women) representing the best orienteers in the world.

We are currently planning to have a production company live streaming the orienteering events, but we need to supplement the filming with 7-10 additional volunteer camera operators to be stationed somewhere in the terrain and operating a video camera, with the possibility for 1-2 small running cameras as well.

No video experience is required, but volunteers should be familiar with international elite orienteering so that they know who to follow/focus on, and understand things such as where runners might be coming from/going to, etc. Having watched a lot of orienteering on tv/livestream is a plus.

If you are interested in helping us create a great event by operating a video camera please fill out this form so that we can see if we can make this a reality.

The organizing team is also still looking for additional volunteers to help fill roles such as control watchers and traffic control during the orienteering events. If you can help out with some of these tasks, please register at https://twg.rosterfy.com/register and be sure to use the sport registration code SORIENTEERING so that you will be assigned to the orienteering pool of volunteers.

2022 OUSA Junior Nationals Recap

April 1-3, 2022

Host: Orienteering Cincinnati
Event Website
Location: East Fork State Park, Batavia, OH
Event Director: Mike Minium
- Registrar: Guy Olsen
- OUSA Course Consultant: Peter Goodwin
- Course Setters:
  - Friday: Shin Shimizu
  - Saturday: Matthew Robbins
  - Sunday: Mike Minium