One day Classic NRE at Ward Pound Ridge, site of the 2016 Classic Champs.
OUSA photos on Facebook, by Evalin Brautigam
This annual event takes place at Pawtuckaway State Park in New Hampshire, an area known for its enormous boulders and difficult orienteering. This year’s event included one National Ranking Event day in addition to the traditional canoe-o and Wicked Hard Night-O (WHNO).
Host club: Up North Orienteers
The 2024 North American Championships were held as part of the annual Canadian Orienteering Festival. The first weekend of the festival took place in Mansfield, near Toronto, with the Canadian Middle and Long Champs. The festivities then moved to Kingston for a joint COC/NAOC Sprint, followed by the Sprint Relay and debut NAOC Knockout Sprint. Another rest day before moving up to Calabogie, west of Ottawa, for the epic final Middle and Long distance races. There were several US victories (Ali Crocker took home the gold in the Middle and Long, and Joe Barrett in the Long) but it wasn’t enough to keep the Canadians from winning the Björn Kjellström Cup.
Organizers results page.
The 2024 Sprint World Orienteering Championships (WOC) will be hosted in Edinburgh, Scotland, from July 12-16, 2024.
Orienteering USA’s WOC Review Panel (RP – Peggy Dickison, Tyra Christopherson, Jeff Saeger, Glen Tryson) will choose up to 3 (three) male and 3 (three) female athletes to represent the USA at WOC, in addition to the one male and one female already selected by winning the NAOC sprint in 2023. Using the same selection criteria, the WOC RP may also choose alternates who will step in, should the need arise.
There will be two official Team Trials.
To be considered a candidate for 2024 WOC Team Selection, a WOC candidate must meet the WOC eligibility requirements and also declare their intent to seek selection to the team.
Candidates should refer to the Full WOC 2024 Selection Criteria document which can be found in the Orienteering USA Library.
Orienteering USA is currently considering submitting a bid to host the World Trail Orienteering Championships (WTOC) in 2027. We would like to determine whether we have the minimum necessary team to support this event as well as what geographic part of the country is best prepared to host.
Whether you are a veteran trail orienteer or a newcomer to the discipline of Trail Orienteering, we welcome your input. Let us know if you are interested in helping to bring WTOC to the US or have some great ideas of a venue near you that would be ideal for Trail-O by filling out this brief survey. Thank you in advance for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.
Event writeup courtesy Carl Fey
Several US Ski-orienteers took part in the ski-orienteering races in Haanja, Estonia February 23-25, 2024 which included the World Cup Final, the Open Nordic Junior Meeting in Ski-Orienteering. The World Masters Ski-Orienteering Championships, and some open races for others. The organizers had difficult conditions to deal with as it was +1 to +5C all week and the snow was melting in front of our eyes. Given the difficult conditions, the experienced Estonian organizers did a great job. In recent years Estonia and Latvia are probably the countries which have progressed the most in ski-orienteering with increasing good results and breath.
Veteran Sharon Crawford had her normal strong performances and won good metals in all of the races in D80—sprint, middle, and long. Sharon commented, “The races were very difficult technically. I found the swamps especially challenging. The skiing was fun but really treacherous.” In H55 Carl Fey was 7th in the Sprint, 6th in the long, and 9th in the middle. Carl commented, “these were very difficult races technically in terms of both skiing and orienteering. I especially enjoyed the rolling winding downhill trails through the woods requiring good skiing skills. The organizers did a good job to make choosing the best route choice difficult”
In the Open Nordic Junior Meeting H18 class Erik Fey (USA) was 12th in the sprint and 7th in the medium. In the long he raced in the H16 class which was not part of the Nordic Junior Meeting and won. In the long race Erik arrived at the finish totally soaking wet from his waist down after having skied across a lake which had much standing water on top of it which got sprayed all over him by his skis. After the races Erik commented, “I am really happy with my long race. The medium race was really interesting. In the H14 open class (not part of the Nordic Junior Meeting) Mark Fey (USA) was 5th in the sprint, 3rd in the long, and 2nd in the medium. When asked about the races Mark commented, “It was very exciting to take part in my first international ski-orienteering races. The orienteering was quite difficult. I really liked the fast steep downhills.”
The World Cup did not have any US participants with some US Ski-O team members taking part in the American Birkinbiner ski marathon which occurred in the US at the same time. The sprint races were won by Niklas Ekstrom from Finland and surprise winner Judith Traubaite from Lithuania. The pursuit races were won by Niklas Ekstrom from Finland and Anna Ulvensoen from Norway. In the middle distance the crowd went wild when home favorite Daisy Kudre Schnyder from Estonia won the women’s race. The close race in the men’s class was also exciting with Evert Toivonen finishing just one second ahead of Jorgen Baklid. Norway was excited to win the overall team competition for the 2024 season.
The events ended with the organizers arranging a very nice banquet. Two highlights of the banquet were a ski-o triva quiz which among other things featured a ski-o map from Craftsbury which people had to identify what country it was located in. Most of the participants thought it was located in Norway…. Local dancers also taught participants some Estonian dancing. Sharon Crawford was a popular participant in the dancing where it was uncovered that she had done square dancing as a child.
This month’s OUSA monthly forum featured Barb Bryant, from Navigation Games taking a look at the current state of teaching orienteering in schools. We look at a few successes – and failures – from around the country and the world, and do a deep dive into the approach of Navigation Games, a member club of Orienteering USA.
Click the image below to watch the replay or visit the Orienteering YouTube Channel to view previous forums.
