October 24-25, 2026
Hosts: Hudson Valley Orienteering ( HVO)
Western Connecticut Orienteering Club (WCOC)
Program:
Thank you to Hudson Valley Orienteering and Western Connecticut Orienteering Club for hosting a fantastic two-day NRE at Blue Mountain Reservation! Participants enjoyed beautiful fall colors, rocky forests, and great competition
Summer might have drawn to a close, but we’re still thinking about what an incredible season of racing it was for American athletes. From first-time WOC attendees to historic World Cup Results, take a trip down memory lane with us..
(This summer round-up covers World Cups 1-4, JWOC, WOC, and WMOC. American athletes from around the nation also competed at O-Ringen, Swedish League, Swiss O’Week, EYOC, OOCup, and the Canadian Orienteering Festival.)(This summer round-up covers World Cups 1-4, JWOC, WOC, and WMOC. American athletes from around the nation also competed at O-Ringen, Swedish League, Swiss O’Week, EYOC, OOCup, and the Canadian Orienteering Festival.)
US Team Summer Wrap-up
While we’re already well into autumn, we wanted to celebrate a summer of excellent racing and historic results for the US team abroad. Let’s take a look back at international events throughout the last few months.
World Cup 1 [Apr 24-26] – Locarno, Switzerland
Four American athletes took on the first World Cup in Locarno, Switzerland. Oriana Riley, Keegan Harkavy, Ricardo Schaniel, and Thomas Curiger competed in this sprint World Cup. They unfortunately only had one opportunity to compete officially, but enjoyed themselves sprinting around in the beautiful mountains regardless.
Read Oriana’s blog post here.
World Cup 2 [May 28-31] – Skara-Lidköping, Sweden
Two then-Sweden-based USA orienteering athletes, Keegan Harkavy and Anthony Riley, competed at the second World Cup of the season, another sprint event in Skara and Lidköping. They competed in the KO quali and the individual sprint and pulled off some impressive results.
World Orienteering Cup 2026: Results & Event Info
Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) [June 29 – July 4] – Karlskrona, Sweden
Twelve juniors got the opportunity to compete in the epicenter of orienteering in Karlskrona, Sweden. They took on challenging, swampy terrain and some interesting peninsula sprinting. And they got to take improved knowledge and strengthened friendships home from Scandinavia.
Read their blog post here.
World Orienteering Championships (WOC) [July 6-11] – Genoa, Italy
The World Orienteering Championships were held in Genoa, Italy this year, and the U.S. sent eight athletes, including four first-timers (Annika Mihata, Ava Suhocki, Greta Leonard and Sergei Ryzhkov) and four returners (Evalin Brautigum, Joseph Brautigum, Ricardo Schaniel, and Keegan Harkavy). They enjoyed some extremely interesting and complex sprint racing, and, of course, some delicious gelato.
Read Annika’s blog post here
World Orienteering University Championship (WUOC) [July 28 – Aug 1] – Vila Real, Portugal
Twelve college-aged athletes took on the World Orienteering University Championships (WUOC) in Vila Real, Portugal. Despite fears about the heat of the summer in Portugal, the weather held out for a beautiful week of racing around interesting streets as well as an extremely pleasant forest.
Keegan Harkavy came fourth in the KO-sprint qualifiers, which wouldn’t be his last legendary result for the summer. The team played a lot of Ninja, ate a lot of chocolate mousse, and enjoyed socializing with the other college teams.
Read FISU’s round-up here.
World Cup Round 3 [Aug 5-9] – Vyšší Brod, Czechia
Four athletes — three of whom were on the heels of racing or coaching at WUOC — took a quick flight over to Vyšší Brod, Czechia, for the third World Cup and first purely forest event of the season.
In the men’s relay, Thomas Laraia, Anthony Riley, and Keegan Harkavy pulled off the highest result in American World Cup history — 17th!!! Evalin Brautigum didn’t have a relay team, but tackled the challenging woods in the individual middle and middle quali.
World Orienteering Cup 2026: Results & Event Info
World Masters Orienteering Championships [Aug 7-14] – Rzeszow, Poland
Around 20 American orienteers traveled to Rzeszów, Poland to compete at the 2026 World Masters Orienteering Championships. U.S. legend Sharon Crawford led the way by winning Gold in the Long Distance final, while several other runners turned in strong individual performances on challenging courses and everyone enjoyed a great week of racing in Poland:
European Orienteering Championship (WC4) [Sep 24-27] – Drusinikai, Lithuania
Athletes Joseph Barrett and Thomas Laraia took on the thorny, green woods of Drusnikai, Lithuania. They wrapped up the summer with some challenging races, some stellar results, and a whole lot of fun.
World Orienteering Cup 2026: Results & Event Info
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And with that, the summer season of racing came to a close. If you still want a chance to nap some world ranking points or to race alongside the U.S. team members, show up to NAOC in December.
October 10-11, 2026
Hosts: New England Orienteering Club (NEOC)
Program:
The New England Orienteering Championships brought 150+ athletes from near and far to the beautiful Northeast, where races were technically challenging, beautiful, and extremely enjoyable.
Photos by Bridget Hall here.
Photos and videos by Riley Family available in this album.
Videos:
Edited by Oriana Riley
Host: Northeast Ohio Orienteering Club (NEOOC)
Program:
This year’s Masters Nationals (what used to be the Classic Champs) took place east of Cleveland, with challenging courses, glorious weather, and a bonus corn maze orienteering race! At this event US Champions are crowned in each age class based on the combined total time for two days of classic racing.
Winners in F65+, from left to right: Sue Kuestner (bronze), Pavlina Brautigam (gold), and Peggy (silver) Dickison. Photo by Stephanie Ross
Photos by Nadim Ahmed
Photo album by Nadim Ahmed
Photos from NEOOC
Video from the corn maze
Short interview with event director Jonathan Boyer about corn maze orienteering
This Thursday, October 1st at 8:30pm, join us for an online course review session. You’ll be able to hear directly from some of the course designers and vetters, as well as participant stories of success and … not as much success. This session is open to anybody, whether you attended or not!
Thursday, 8:30pm ET on Google Meet
Submit your desires in this form
The US was represented by three athletes at the 2026 European Trail Orienteering Championships in Poland. Clare Durand (LAOC) and Russ Myer (CRNA) competed in the Open class and Anne Maker (CRNA) competed in the P class. ETOC is the premiere TrailO event for 2026 as there is no World Championship this year. The program consisted of the individual events of TempO and PreO, plus a Relay competition for the entire team. All the events are designed to test precision map reading skills.
First four photos by Tomasz Krysiak- Fotografia Sportowa
Host: Columbia River Orienteering Club (CROC)
Four events over four days, with one NRE and the annual Western States Orienteering Championships.
This year’s Deschutes Daze was impacted by wildfires and associated smoke in the area, with several venue changes. The event was able to take place, with four days of orienteering made possible by some last-minute course setting heroism on the part of the organizers!
Photos by Robert Rodriguez
This year’s the World Orienteering Championships took place in Genova, Italy. As a Sprint WOC, the schedule consisted entirely of urban sprint discipline races: Sprint, Knock-out Sprint, and Mixed Sprint Relay.
Top photo by Alexis Leonard. Remaining photos by Evalin Brautigam and Alexis Leonard.
Meet the team on the US Team blog!
Photos from all events from Alexis Leonard
The 2026 European Youth Orienteering Championships (EYOC) took place June 25-27 in Slovenia. The US sent nine athletes across four age classes (M/W16 and M/W18). Meet them on the US Team Blog!
Photos by Natalia Fey, Ryan Dunlap, and Frank Neumann
The US sent a full team of six young men and six young women to this year’s Junior World Orienteering Championships, which took place in Karlskrona, Sweden.
Read all about the event from the athletes’ perspective in the US Orienteering Team’s blog.
All photos by Evalin Brautigam
The 2026 JWOC competition week kicked off with the Sprint competition in Trossö, the historic centre of Karlskrona. The courses proved challenging, as the organizers used artificial barriers to make selecting a route a little bit tricker.
The Mixed Sprint Relay is a race between teams of four athletes–two women and two men—in a fast, head-to-head competition with a total winning time of under one hour. The top US team was USA 2, with Sophie Howes, Mori Finlayson-Johnecheck, Mikhail Biryukov, and Anna Green, coming in 48th.
The individual forest races took place in typical western Swedish terrain, which is to say that it was pretty tough! The women faced a 9.9 km course and the men a 12.6 km course, and the transition from sprint the day before to a long day in the forest was a challenging one for many.
The final race of 2026 JWOC was the forest relay, which consists of teams of three men and three women, racing separately. The best US women’s team finished 24th , while the best US men’s Team finished 21st.
