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.
US Ski-Orienteers Performances Continue to Improve on the 2nd Day of the World Ski-Orienteering Championships and European Youth Championships.
The 2022 World Ski-Orienteering Championships and European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships are taking place in the North of Finland in Kemi this week. The men’s race on Wednesday, March 16th, 2022 was a long pursuit race. In a pursuit race racers start the amount of time they were behind the leader in the previous race which was a sprint. The men’s race was noteworthy for starting with skiers skiing up a downhill area, thus pulses were very high from the very first seconds of the race. The race had three loops.
The men’s race was won by Jörgen Backlid of Norway in 69:02 (his time for day 2 was 57:08) who had been in the lead of the sprint race until he made a small mistake of about 15 seconds near the end and ended up in 4th place 7 seconds behind the winner. Tuomas Kotro of Finland was second and Nicola Mueller of Switzerland had an impressive race ending third. Chris Burnham of Stowe, VT, who is coming off of an impressive 2nd place finish in the American Brikebeiner classic ski marathon which had over 1600 participants, had a solid race. Chris was 47th in the long pursuit race and the top American man with a day 2 time of 83:09. Chris commented, “I was happy that the race was longer today than yesterday as I enjoy and do better at longer races. Some of the mazes of small trails were really dense and thus quite difficult.”
American Nikolay Nachev from Seattle, WA was 52nd with a day 2 time of 102:15. The mazes also stood out to Nikolai who commented, “The gentle slope with no wide tracks was like the Bermuda Triangle. You go in there and you don’t know whether you are going to get out.” The men’s race was noteworthy for starting at the bottom of a downhill ski slope which the athletes had to ski up making a great spectacle for spectators. Many thought this was a somewhat harsh to start a race like this, but Chris and Nikolai who both like tough races were excited by this intensive start to the race. One can watch the races on web-TV at: https://orienteering.sport/event/world-ski-orienteering-championship/pursuit/
The European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships had a middle distance race today. The race was won by Pyry Riissanen from Finland in 18:01. American Erik Fey had an impressive race, especially given that he is 13 years old and racing in the 17 and under class, ending 18th in a time of 23:24. These European Championship races are Erik’s first time racing internationally for the US. Erik was excited to be solidly competitive and in front of some skiers from top nations like Sweden. Erik commented, “It has been a great experience to race at the European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships. I love the feeling of flying along the narrow trails with quick turns. I am very pleased with my race today, but I did have one 15 second mistake early in the race. Being here really motivates me to train harder for future years. I am really looking forward to racing in these races in a few years when I am 17.”
Tomorrow will be a rest day and then the races continue with a middle distance race for World Championships and a long distance race for the European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships on Friday. However, being only 13 Erik has opted not to race in the long race this year. He says he looks forward to hopefully trying that next year….
Press Release courtesy Carl Fey
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
Reminder: Regular registration for the Flying Pig XXIV and 2022 OUSA Junior Nationals closes Monday, March 14th. Late fees apply for any entries received after Monday.
Register today at EventReg. Click here to see who is already registered!
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.
