Category: Announcements

Announcements for OUSA

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

Saturday AM: Middle at Black Rock Forest

Saturday PM: Sprint at Trophy Point

Sunday: Long Distance at Black Rock Forest

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.

TeamUSA: WOC Team Trials update

The National Team ESC has announced that races at the 42nd West Point National Ranking Event weekend will serve as team trials to select a team to compete at the World Orienteering Championships to be held June 26-30 in Denmark.

This year’s WOC will be a ‘sprint-WOC’ featuring a Sprint Relay, Knockout Sprint and Individual Sprint events. As such, the Saturday afternoon sprint (4/23) at Trophy Point will be one of two trials races for team hopefuls. An additional Friday sprint (4/22) is scheduled (pending permitting) to be held at Fort Tryon Park in New York City to serve as the second trials race.

Additional information regarding the Friday sprint will be forthcoming as details are confirmed. At this time only Red & Blue courses will be offered and may be open to non-trialers pending decision of the organizers. Of course the full slate of sprint courses on offer as part of the S/M/L event at West Point are open to all.

Board Adopts RUS/BLR Policy

Orienteering USA supports the recently announced IOF suspensions of the Russian and Belarusian member federations due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. At a special Board meeting held on March 21st, 2022, the Orienteering USA Board adopted the following policy to clarify how these suspensions will affect participation in events sanctioned by Orienteering USA.

Whereas the IOF has suspended the RUS and BLR federations, OUSA adopts the following policy:

1. Participation in OUSA-sanctioned NREs representing Russia and Belarus – the nations, their orienteering federations, and/or clubs affiliated with those federations – is not permitted.

2. Participants displaying symbols that identify them with the states of Russia or Belarus, the Russian or Belarusian Orienteering Federation, or one of their affiliated clubs are subject to disqualification.

3. This policy shall be automatically revoked with respect to each federation if and when the IOF restores the full membership rights of that federation.

Approved March 21, 2022

A copy of this policy can be found in the OUSA Library. The IOF has also published this FAQ concerning the suspensions.

US Ski-Orienteering Team opens the 2022 World Championships / European Youth Championships with Solid Performances

The 2022 World Ski-Orienteering Championships and European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships are taking place in the North of Finland in Kemi this week. In the men’s class Chris Burnham coming off of an impressive 2nd place finish in the American Brikebeiner classic ski marathon had a solid race. The race was won by Ville Petteri Saarela from Finland in 11:47 one second ahead of Tuomas Kotro of Finland and three seconds ahead of Rasmus Wickbom of Sweden. Chris Burnham of Stowe, VT was the top American finisher in 51 st place in 17:50.

When asked about his race Chris commented, “It was a solid race for me. I am happy there were quite a few wide skating trails. The terrain was not as steep as I had expected compared to looking at the old map of the area, but there were never-the-less some real hills.” Chris also indicated that he was looking forward to the longer races to come later in the week as he normally does better in longer races. When asked by the TV production crew about an interesting fact about himself yesterday Chris explained that when he is not skiing his job is computer programing of underwater robots which sounds very interesting.

Tim Lundberg of Sweden won the Boys European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships 9:23. Erik Fey from the USA was 24th in 12:22. When asked about his race Erik commented, “Since I am 13 years old and race in the 17 and under category, my coach and I decided that my main goals for this year would be to gain experience and not make any mistakes in the race larger than 15 seconds. I am happy that I managed to do that.” Erik also commented, “We came into the finish area on a huge downhill today, and it was a little distracting with people cheering, but we had discussed this would be the case. Thus, I told myself concentrate. I was right behind someone there. It was a bit confusing because the skier in front of me kept going straight into the stadium, but a much better route choice was to turn left just at the bottom of the hill before one came into the stadium. Luckily, I was reading my map and went the correct way. It really is exciting to be here and meet and race against people from all over the world. It was helpful that my father and coach [Carl Fey] has raced many times in World Championships, so he was able to explain to me what to expect.”

Tomorrow, March 16th is a pursuit race for World Championships (one starts the amount of time that
a skier was behind today’s winner). The youth class will have a normal medium distance race tomorrow.

Press Release & photos courtesy Carl Fey

OUSA Announces Masters Nationals for 2022 & 2023

At its board meeting this past Monday, the OUSA board approved not one, but two bids for national championship events.

The 2022 OUSA Masters Nationals will be hosted by the New England Orienteering Club (NEOC) on October 8-9, 2022 on a brand new map of Bigelow Hollow State Park in Union, CT on the CT/MA border.

Early October is fall foliage season in southern New England – don’t miss it!


The 2023 OUSA Masters Nationals will be hosted jointly by the Buffalo Orienteering Club (BFLO) and Rochester Orienteering Club (ROC) on Sept 23-24, 2023. Saturday’s event will be held at Sprague Brook, about 25 miles SE of Buffalo, then the action heads to the east side of Letchworth SP about 50 miles S of Rochester for Sunday. If you want a sneak peek – don’t miss this year’s Billygoat which will be held on the west side of the gorge at Letchworth in conjunction with the Overlook NRE the weekend of May 7-8, 2022.

Both events are now listed on the OUSA National Calendar – links to event information and registration will be updated as details are published.

Youth Mapping Program – 2021 Summary

The Youth Mapping Program supports the mission of Orienteering USA, with a focus on the goals of increasing participation and teaching map reading and navigation skills. We match schools and youth organizations with cartographers, provide grants for maps, develop mappers, and encourage relationships between local clubs and schools. Mappers can become part of the program by signing up here; schools and youth organizations can apply to get a map made here. 

As of our last report to the OUSA Board, the program had produced 33 completed maps, with 13 more in progress and 12 in the planning stages, for a grand total of 58 map projects. Finished maps can be viewed using the locator map on the OUSA website. Many kids have orienteered on the finished maps. We also publish example stories of map use on the OUSA website, you can view these here.

We are asking all OUSA member clubs to publicize this mapping program to schools and youth organizations in your area. For each map that is made, several educators have the opportunity to teach dozens or hundreds of children about orienteering. Please contact the committee if you have any questions. A good way to get started might be to ask your members to share with any school or youth group contacts a link to the YMP page. 

The YMP maps have already been used by hundreds of children and adults. PE teachers have created new orienteering units. JROTC units have conducted training on the maps. Parks and Recreation departments have collaborated with local Scouts and orienteering clubs to create permanent courses. 

The volunteers on the YMP Committee are orienteers who also teach kids or make maps themselves. We welcome additional volunteers, including people who can help with outreach to educators. Email us to find out how you can support the effort!