Thanks to Gord Hunter (SOAR) for this recap of the 2024 Air Force JROTC Orienteering Championships
The 2024 AFJROTC Orienteering Nationals have come and gone. Most reports I have heard judge it to be a success. I’ll take their word for it as I was too personally involved to offer an impartial opinion.
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By the numbers we had just under 100 AFJROTC cadets from nine schools in five states participating. The smallest school team was one cadet from a school in Texas. The largest school team, a team from Florida, had 29 entries.
The presence of the event prompted two schools in Florida and one in Maryland to start participating in local events. The others were already doing so.
The event attracted the attention of the local tourism authority which agreed to donate to Suncoast Orienteering a set amount of money for each room-night booked in their county. The tourism authority is called Florida’s Sports Coast. How appropriate!
The host hotel sold out for the nights of the AFJROTC championships and were very happy with the crowd and the deportment of the cadets.
For Saturday evening entertainment Suncoast Orienteering offered a taste of night orienteering for the participants. One hiccup occurred when the local park authority would not give us an exception to the rule of ‘no stakes in the ground, no postings of any kind. No problem. Eight leaders, family supporters were recruited to act as control stands and hold the markers and SI boxes. The event was low-key and social. No winners were declared but each team got a printout of their split times.
Who won the Orienteering Nationals?
Team Trophies:
Individually gold medals went to:
The list of people to thank would be long but here goes:
Mark Berlinger and his staff for permission to hold the event at Starkey Park and for getting the park ready to receive us.
Blaik Mathews of Florida Orienteering for getting out of a sickbed to come time our event and provide the popular Livelox service.
Kayla Getz of Florida’s Sports Coast for helping us in so many ways.
Krista Simone of New Port Richey’s Comfort Inn and Suites who made sure our visitors were housed and comfortable.
The staff at the Comfort Inn breakfast who did their best trying to keep up with dozens of hungry teenagers
Mike and Nicolas Engestrom for help setting out and picking up controls as well as helping register and launch or public entries.
Former JROTC Champ. Robert Weller who showed up to orienteer but also ended up picking up a lot of distant controls from the Saturday competition.
Rob Haddow of Ottawa, Canada a snowbird orienteer who stepped up to check control locations and make course suggestions.
The booster clubs of Suwannee HS JROTC (Saturday) and Citrus HS (Sunday) who provided food and drinks for all. Thank you, parents and volunteers.
And finally, Wayne Barron of the AFJROTC national headquarters who accepted an idea from a complete stranger, put faith in the idea that we could make a better attended AFJROTC Orienteering Nationals at a better price for the participants than could happen elsewhere (and we still made money doing it). Wayne provided communication support and ideas for the event. His office also chipped in a prize for the winning Overall team.
Gord Hunter
Suncoast Orienteering
Event Director
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 press release was originally prepared by US Ski-O Team Coach Carl Fey with edits by Orienteering USA. Photos courtesy Carl Fey.
The 2024 World Ski Orienteering Championships (WSOC) are taking place in Ramsau, Austria from January 23-27. The Junior World Ski Orienteering Championships (JWSOC) and European Youth Ski Orienteering Championships (EYSOC) are being held concurrently on the same maps. The US National Team has skiers competing in all three events.
Ramsau is famous for its Dachstein glacier which is the most famous place in the world for summer skiing and is also a popular place for skiing in the winter with an extensive network of cross-country ski trails and beautiful mountain scenery. The weather conditions have been challenging with warm weather and rain resulting in melting and slow snow making it difficult for organizers and skiers alike. The organizers had to change some of courses less than 24 hours before the races.
US veteran ski orienteer Adrian Owens (GMOC) has had the best US result in the men’s World Championship races this week where he has had a friendly battle with fellow US team member Ari Ofsevit (CSU). To get to the start of the sprint race skiers took a chairlift resulting in fast conditions being mostly downhill through an extensive network of trials requiring quick decisions at high speed. In the sprint race, won by Jörgen Baklid (NOR), Adrian Owens placed 63rd with Ari Ofsevit close behind in 64th separated by a mere 21 seconds.
The grueling pursuit race was a a mass-start long race run as a one-man relay with three loops and Jörgen Baklid once again taking the win. Adrian was 54th and Ari was 55th. When asked about the race Adrian said, “I went and fought and fought on the course and finally made it to the end. There were really a lot of tough climbs today.” In the middle distance Adrian Owens was 59th place and Ari Ofsevit was 61st. When asked about the races in Ramsau US skier Ari Ofsevit replied, “Our hosts here in Ramsau have done an admiral job in somewhat adverse conditions. The long and middle distance races took us through many fields and forests with significant climb before an exhilarating downhill into the stadium”.
The US was represented by Alex Merka (QOC) in the Women’s Junior World Championships. This was Alex’s debut in international ski-o racing. She ended up 33rd in the sprint, 30th in the long race where she showed off great determination and stamina, and had her best race in the middle distance finishing 33rd. When asked about her races she said, “After the sprint race, which was skied in a blinding snowstorm, it was nice to have a sunny day for the long course, but that produce slow snow. I have discovered that long courses in ski-orienteering are really tough physically. I am happy that myself and my skis are durable.”
The US was represented by Erik Fey (ROC) in the Boy’s European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships. While not quite the results Erik had hoped for, he had impressive results for the US with a 14th in the sprint, a 16th in the long, and an 18th in the middle. Erik showed off his skiing speed staying near the front for the first five controls in the long mass-start race, however, he was not able to turn this into the results he had hoped for. Erik said, “This was my first time to race in the hilly Alps which was a good experience but created very different orienteering route choices from what I am used to. It inspires me to be here, and I will train even harder for next year.”
The racing concludes with the relay races on January 27th. Races have been covered live on TV in several countries and can also be viewed on IOF TV (live or via replay). The team expressed their thanks to the great cooking by US Ski-O Team Cook and motivator Allison Van Akkeren who is the former US Biathlon Team cook and cooked healthy dinners for a hungry team all week. The team also expressed their thanks to US Team Coach Carl Fey for his long days of waxing, support at the races, attending team leaders meetings, and briefing team members in the evening. The US team has often not had a coach at international ski-o races and several team members mentioned this was much appreciated so that they could focus more on racing.
The US Ski-Orienteering Team would like to say a big thank you to Orienteering USA and other supporters this year. The US Ski-O Team hopes to field an even larger team at international races next year. This is only possible with financial support from Orienteering USA and others. Donations, which may be designated for the US Ski-O Team, can be made at: https://orienteeringusa.org/support/
For more information about the US Ski-Orienteering Team or how to qualify, please contact Adrian Owens, Chairperson of the US Ski-O Team Executive Committee at: aowens@nullsterlingcollege.edu
