The JWOC Selection Committee (Erin Schirm, Anton Salmenkylä and Jon Torrance) is pleased to announce the 2021 US Team selected to compete at the Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) to be held September 5-10 in Gebze, Kocaeli, Turkey, about 50km from Istanbul.
JWOC 2021 has been postponed to September 5-10, 2021 due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on preparations for the event. The deadline for the submission of petitions for selection to the US JWOC team has been extended to June 5, 2021 with the announcement of the team to be made no later than June 15, 2021. Team selection criteria can be found here.
The IOF has announced general COVID-19 policies to minimize risk at world orienteering events. These policies mean that the JWOC experience will be very different this year. All participants at JWOC 2021 will enter and remain in an Event Bubble dependent upon negative PCR tests and there will be strict rules to avoid contacts outside the Bubble and minimize contacts within the Bubble. OUSA will be upholding all of the IOF and local organizer’s COVID-19 restrictions. Please take these policies into consideration when deciding to submit a petition for JWOC team membership.
Following a meeting on April 23, 2021, the IOF made the following announcement regarding the 2021 JWOC:
“The organisers and regional authorities in Turkey have requested that the Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) 2021 be postponed from July to new dates in September 2021. The July dates are no longer possible due to planning difficulties caused by the pandemic. The new dates will be confirmed next week.”
In addition, Orienteering USA has uploaded much of the raw, unedited video footage to a Google Drive for downloading by schools, clubs and individuals to utilize in creating derivative media for publicity. The majority of clips are sorted/titled by date, school, bib# and name to facilitate identifying useful content. Any media used should credit/tag Orienteering USA. The content in these folders will be deleted at the end of April, so grab any clips you want now.
Orienteering USA’s Junior Team Executive Steering Committee (JTESC) is pleased to announce the athletes in the National Junior Program for 2021. Due to the lack of competition in 2020, no changes to team placement into the Junior National Team (JNT) were made at this time. Applications to the Junior Development Team (JDT) are accepted year round. JDT athletes who applied to be considered for the JNT may be moved up as they reach JNT performance targets.
2021 Junior National Team Diana Aleksieva, QOC Jessica Colleran, COC Christiane Fletcher, GAOC Bridget Hall, NEOC Keegan Harkavy, NEOC Kirsten Mayland, DVOA Alex (Alexis) Merka, QOC AJ (Anthony) Riley, DVOA David Runde, MNOC, KristiansandOK Emilia Schmidt, QOC, Tampereen Pyrintö Adrian Vartia, OK Löftan Sweden
Junior Development Team Max Ahmed, QOC Jack Barkley, COC Ben Brady, COC Ian Dunlap, OLOU Mori Finlayson-Johnecheck, NEOC/CSU Luke Menzie, COC Jasper Ralinovsky, OCIN Oriana Riley, DVOA Zoe Sibthorp, COC Ava Suhocki, DVOA Aubree Winters, COC
The JWOC Selection Committee will choose up to six young male and six young female athletes to represent the USA at the 2021 Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) in Turkey. In order to be considered a candidate for 2021 JWOC Team Selection, a junior (born in 2001 or later) must meet the IOF eligibility requirements and also declare his/her intent to seek selection by petition.
Because of the uncertainty pertaining to the international organization of and ability to travel to JWOC created by the Covid-19 pandemic, the inability to safely schedule fair JWOC Team Trials as well as the lack of orienteering competitions in 2020, the 2021 JWOC Team Selection will proceed by petition for all athletes who wish to be considered for the team.
The petition shall be evaluated by the Selection Committee using the Team Selection Reviewing Rubrics. The completed petition should include as much of the requested information as possible, and be sent to ousajuniorprogram@nullorienteeringusa.org by May 5, 2021. The Selection Committee will announce the team on or before May 10, 2021.
The 2021 JWOC Selection Criteria document and rubrics may be accessed on the Orienteering USA website.
Updated Program Information for the 2021 Junior Program, which includes both the National Team and Development Team, has been uploaded to the Orienteering USA website. Applications are due by Sunday, January 3rd, 2021. Full information and links to application materials can be found on the Orienteering USA website.
The International Orienteering Federation Council, at its digital meeting held this past Friday July 31st, decided that the Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) 2020 scheduled to be held in Turkey in October and the World Mountain Bike Orienteering Championships (WMTBOC) 2020 scheduled to be held in Portugal in October will be cancelled due to the continuing effects of the Covid-19 virus pandemic.
The JWOC selection committee is excited to announce the athletes who have been chosen to compete in the 2020 Junior World Championships. We realize that the world situation with COVID 19 means that the champs may or may not happen and that the timing may be sub-optimal for athletes especially who live in the US because the postponed date falls right in the middle of the fall school semester. Even so we have decided to choose a team in case there is an opportunity for our athletes to represent the US at the world champs. We understand that selected athletes may not be able to attend and that the team size could potentially be reduced due to the current situation. In this case the team coach will have the final say in giving alternates in the designated order a chance to step up based on his evaluation of where they are at leading up to the championships.
This year was quite a hard decision for the selection committee because we had almost no recent high level racing data and most of the head to head racing data came from last summer or spring. The committee used the petition process rubric as a guideline to support their decision making. The committee prioritized current physical fitness levels by way of recent 3k time trials, training volume and consistency from training logs, previous race experience, and overall competitive experience. As always the last spots and alternate positions are very tough to decide, particularly given the circumstances of this year. We deeply regret that all the athletes didn’t get the chance they usually would to prove their ability at trials races. The selection committee is nevertheless pleased to announce the follow teams and alternates.
Men: – Keegan Harkavy – Thomas Laraia – Aidan Minto – Anthony Riley – David Runde – Adrian Vartia Alternate: Kai Mihata
Thank you to all the athletes who tried out and for all the hard work. We encourage everyone to keep working hard; you never know when the breakthroughs will come.
Best of luck. Sincerely
The JWOC Selection Committee of Jon Torrance, Greg Ahlswede, Erin Schirm
The USA Junior Team Executive Steering Committee (JTESC) is excited to welcome and introduce to you our new Junior National Coach, Oskar Andrén! Oskar is a 25 year-old Swedish elite orienteer, with some impressive results, and continuing ambitions for his own orienteering career. He is currently living in Trondheim, Norway, where he is studying Science of Human Movement at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
Photo Credit: Kateryna Dzema
Last year, representing the Swedish National Team, he ran his first World Cup races in China, achieving 36th place in the Sprint, and 45th in the Middle. Other 2019 results included the Norwegian champs (Sprint 4th, Middle 5th, and Long 16th), and the Swedish champs (Sprint 4th, Sprint Relay 2nd, and Relay 5th). Oskar also had success during his junior years: He made the podium three times at the 2014 Junior European Cup (JEC): Sprint gold, Long silver, and Relay silver.
Oskar has almost 4 years of prior experience coaching younger orienteering athletes. He worked one year at the orienteering high school in Hallsberg, Sweden, and, has worked 2.5 years (so far) at the Orienteering high school in Trondheim. Beside coaching at the schools, he helped organize training camps for the Norwegian junior national team and was a team leader at the 2019 JEC in France.
Oskar’s own words to National Junior Program (NJP) members… “My ambitions for this job [are] to combine my knowledge, experience and ideas together with the experience that previous coaches had, [and] to help inspire you into being as good as you can be.”
