Category: US Team

2026 World Orienteering Championships Recap

July 7-11, 2026

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

2026 Junior World Orienteering Championships Recap

June 29-July 4, 2026

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.

Sprint and Sprint Relay

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.

Long and Middle

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.

Relay

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.

2026 European Youth Orienteering Championships underway!

The 2026 European Youth Orienteering Championships kick off tomorrow, Thursday June 25th, in Slovenia.

The U.S. has nine athletes participating across four age classes (M/W16 and M/W18). Meet them on the US Team Blog!

Start times (in CEST) for the first race, the Sprint, are as follows:

10:08 Alexander Eriksson Men 16
10:34 Samuel Nickolas Sunko Men 18
10:48 Josalyn Dunlap Women 16
11:03 Rose FreedmanRiles Women 18
11:07 Nathan Hinds Men 18
11:10 Allison Coates Women 16
11:29 Sophie Neumann Women 16
11:30 Erik Fey Men 18
11:35 Mark Fey Men 16

The competition continues with a Long race on Friday and a Relay on Saturday. If you’re in the US and like to wake up early you can follow the action on the EYOC livestream! 

Good luck to all our athletes!

2026 WOC Team Selected

The Review Panel has read all the petitions, looked at results, and
deliberated. Here is the team for the Sprint WOC this summer, with their
race assignments.

Men (alphabetical by last name):
.       Joseph Barrett (NMO): Individual, Knock-out,
.       Keegan Harkavy (petition) (NEOC): Individual, Relay
.       Sergei Ryzhkov (DVOA): Knock-out, Relay
.       Ricardo Schaniel (petition) (BUSSOLA): Individual, Knock-out
.       1st alternate: Victor Frolenko (DVOA)
.       2nd alternate: Anthony Riley (petition) (DVOA)

Women (alphabetical by last name):
.       Evalin Brautigam (petition) (WCOC): Individual, Relay
.       Greta Leonard (petition) (COC): Knock-out, Relay
.       Annika Mihata (COC): Individual, Knock-out
.       Ava Suhocki (DVOA): Individual, Knock-out
.       1st alternate: Oriana Riley (petition) (DVOA)

While we had more petitions than usual this year and no automatic
qualifiers, we still saw strong competition at Team Trials. The three sprint
races at Trials were the primary results we evaluated for athletes who
attended. For petitioning athletes, we reviewed Sprint Nationals results
from 2025 and 2026 as well as World Cup performances, with particular
attention to head-to-head comparisons and percent behind metrics relative to
winners and current Team members.

There were some close decisions, as the level of competition among U.S.
athletes continues to rise, but we are confident that this is a strong team
well positioned to perform at WOC.
Congratulations to the Team members and the alternates!

Peggy Dickison, on behalf of the Review Panel (Glen Tryson, Jeff Saeger,
Tyra Christopherson)

Support the US National Team!

You’ve shared the woods with these athletes.

You’ve stood at the start line together, cheered near the finishes, and reviewed maps after the finish.

Now they’re representing the U.S. overseas, and you can still be part of the journey from home.

This fundraiser t-shirt gives back with a large portion of the proceeds supporting USA Orienteering National Team athletes: JWOC, WUOC, WOC, and EYOC.

Wear it while they race, and let’s show them their community is with them every step of the way!

The order window is short – through Friday, May 15 – so people traveling over to Europe will be able to pack them on their trip!

Order your OUSA fundraiser shirts here

EYOC competition is first on June 25-27 in Slovenia. JWOC athletes compete June 29-July 4 in Sweden. WOC competition is July 7-11 in Italy followed by WUOC on July 28-August 1 in Portugal.

A special shoutout to Enjoy Winter for assisting in getting this fundraiser going. They are the new Noname rep and sponsor of the National Teams and YDP uniforms!

OUSA Welcomes New National Team Members

The US National Orientering Team welcomes new members following their selection to either the World University Orienteering Championships (WUOC) or Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) Teams. We are pleased to welcome back returning member Annika Mihata (COC) and to introduce new member Grace Suhocki (DVOA), both joining the Performance Squad. We also extend a warm welcome to Nate Dunlap (OLOU), who has been added to the Junior Squad.

Announcing the 2026 EYOC Team!

Orienteering USA is pleased to announce the team to represent the US at the 2026 European Youth Orienteering Championships (EYOC), to be held in Slovenia June 25-27, 2026. EYOC is the premier international competition for orienteers in the M/W16 and M/W18 age classes, and a tremendous opportunity for our young competitors to test themselves on a larger stage.

Selected this year:

M16
Alex Eriksson
Mark Fey
Nate Dunlap*

M18
Erik Fey
Misha Biryukov*
Nathan Hinds
Samuel Sunko

W16
Josalyn Dunlap
Allison Coates
Sophie Neumann

W18
Anna Green*
Sophie Howes*
Danny Buchholz*
Rose Freedman-Riles

Several of the athletes were also selected to the JWOC team. Due to the close timing of these two competitions, athletes selected for both teams were required to choose only one. Those athletes selected for EYOC who have opted to participate in JWOC instead are noted by an asterisk. Note that Alex Eriksson was selected for both and opted for participation in EYOC.

Congratulations to all the athletes and good luck in Slovenia! We’ll be cheering from home.