Information about and applications for applying to the National Junior Program (Junior National Team and Junior Development Team) are now posted on the Junior Team page.
Note that applications for the Junior National Team are due December 15, 2019. Development Team applications are accepted throughout the year.
At the end of 2019, Junior National Coach Erin Schirm, and Junior Development Coach Greg Ahlswede, are both stepping down from their coaching roles in the National Junior Program (NJP) to get back to working on their respective career paths. They are not stepping away from coaching altogether, or from being part of the Orienteering USA (OUSA) community. They will remain involved as volunteers at the club and national levels, Erin as the Chair of the Executive Steering Committee (ESC) of the senior National Team and Greg as an elite athlete on the National Team.
The Junior National Team (JNT) program was initiated by the Junior Team Executive Steering Committee (JTESC) in 2012, and the program has since grown and advanced under Erin’s leadership as Junior National Coach (JNC) and as the OUSA Director of Sport Development. The current NJP includes the JNT and the Junior Development Team (JDT) providing the program’s benefits to a growing talent pool of young orienteers. Junior orienteering in the U.S. has made significant progress since 2012, as seen not only in the results of NJP athletes at U.S. and international competitions, but also in the considerable increase in the number of juniors aspiring to and selected for the senior National Team.
Erin and Greg have laid the foundation with an effective coaching philosophy that past and present athletes have engaged with and appreciate, and it is JTESCs intention to continue building on that foundation. Beyond providing coaching, the NJP aims to reduce, as much as possible, the impact from the unique challenges to juniors in this country due to the geographic spread of athletes and low density of events. The NJP is a framework for our junior athletes to work together to create a team environment that encourages competitive excellence, a professional demeanor, and an enthusiastic work ethic. It also provides a strong support network for national and international travel, fundraising, lodging, and other assistance needed to enable our athletes to compete at home and abroad.
We would like to thank Erin and Greg for their dedicated work as coaches and Erin, as the main architect of the NJP. JTESC will need some time to redefine the position of the JNC, with possible further engagement of local and regional coaches as proposed recently by the OUSA Executive Committee. The JNC will provide unity and support so that our juniors are prepared to compete at the highest stages, including the Junior Nationals, the North American Orienteering Championships (NAOC) and at the Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC). NJP athletes will meet as teammates at regional and national events and will take advantage of training and coaching opportunities coordinated for them through the efforts of JTESC and the JNC in cooperation with regional coaches, clubs, and the community of NJP supporters.
We would also like to thank former JNT and NJP athletes who have come forward with an interest in contributing to the continuation and growth of the program, and to give back to a community that provided them with opportunities and support for their development as elite orienteers.
JTESC is looking forward to the next phase of the NJP. Be sure to look for the 2020 National Junior Program Application package, to be posted on the OUSA website around Nov. 15, 2019. Coaches Erin and Greg will be available with advice to current NJP athletes on future coaching options at least through the end of this year.
Mark your calendars, 2020 will be an exciting year for the juniors. JWOC team trials are slated to be held at the Junior Nationals on April 18-19, and JWOC will be in Turkey in July. With WOC 2020 being the first Sprint format year, and with many current juniors showing recent strong performances in Sprint competitions, we are looking forward to some of them trying out for the WOC team. We are further hoping for a strong showing by our college and college-bound NJP athletes in the Team Trials for WUOC. And please, everyone, mark your calendars for NAOC 2020, where NJP juniors are hoping to help the U.S. bring the Future Champions Cup home again.
Any questions to JTESC may be emailed to ousajuniorprogram@nullorienteeringusa.org, or contact the JTESC Chair Guy Olsen directly by using the email address indicated on the Orienteering USA website, under Committees/U.S. Teams.
The U.S. Team is looking for a coach to review individual training plans, training logs, be a general source of information on elite orienteering, and help provide a basic communication structure for the team. The position would be as a private contractor with Orienteering USA.
If you are interested in pursuing this possibility, select the PDF document below to see more.
This summer I was given the chance to go to Europe with the U.S. Junior National Team. As an alternate on the team, I was able to participate in a week-long training program, as well as compete in a week of JWOC spectator races. Training, traveling and racing with some of the best junior orienteers was an incredible experience and made for one of the best summers of my life. I learned a lot about orienteering, and played a lot of cards.
My summer officially began with the Boston Sprint Camp which was held the first weekend of June. This was the first time since the April team trials where I could see some of the Junior National Team members and it was super fun to spend time with them, both racing and socializing. The races themselves were also awesome and it really got me pumped for the rest of the summer. Winning the sprint camp was also very nice.
My next stop, a couple of weeks later, was the Philadelphia training camp run by Greg Ahlswede. This training camp was designed by Greg and was for any junior orienteer, with the goal of training and being together as a group. While the woods weren’t the nicest, there was a lot of good quality orienteering. A lot of juniors participated and it was great to bond with them by playing cards and getting my nails painted. When the training camp ended, I had four days before the Junior National Team was scheduled to leave for the JWOC races in Europe, which I spent with fellow teammates Bridget, Julia, and Siri, and Gata (Greg’s cat) at Greg’s house in Pennsylvania. We trained some more, made some pasta, and floated down the river. All in all a pretty good week. From there we were off to Europe.
JWOC was held in Denmark this year, and we were there for a little over 2 weeks. About 16 athletes traveled to Denmark, to race and train. Of those, 12 were competing in JWOC. We were also traveling with three coaches: Erin Schirm, Greg Ahlswede, and Sam.
The trip was pretty much all training or racing. The first week of the trip was focused on training and preparing for the races. This consisted mostly of going out to the Danish woods and doing technical trainings, like line-o’s, contour-only o’s and control picks. The terrain in Denmark was amazing and I would love to go back and race there again some time. It was mostly an open forest with large pine trees. The woods were also quite hilly and the contours very visible. Besides just woods training we did some very weird other training. This training was a mix of team-building and skill practice. For example in one, we had to balance sticks on different parts of our body and then throw the sticks at people. When we were not training, we were playing cards. I played more cards in these two weeks than in the rest of the year combined. The second week was focused on racing. At this point, the JWOC athletes and the tour athletes separated.
My favorite race of the summer was the JWOC spectator long course. I loved this course for two reasons. The first reason was that this was my first good race while in Europe. The sprint race I had done the first day did not go quite how I had wanted it to go and nailing this race felt really good. The other reason I liked this race so much was that it was a mass start. This made the race much more competitive and was really fun to run in. This race really reminded me of the BillyGoat, which is one of my favorite races in the U.S., but it was bigger and more competitive. The first couple of controls were a blur to me, akin more to a cross-country race than a normal orienteering race. At around control 6, I found myself alone for the first time in the race and it really caught me off guard. I was executing my route perfectly to the control and knew exactly where I was and where I was going but being alone really shook my confidence. I could not imagine why I would be alone except if I was lost. This resulted in me missing my control by a bit and losing two to three minutes. Looking back on the control I am pretty sure the course setter did this on purpose by separating the two different courses that started at the same time on this control, this drastically reduced the number of people going to this control and thus I ended up alone. The rest of the race I was running mostly by myself. Yet I never felt really as alone as I do in the U.S. The vast amount of people in the woods really just changed the whole mood of the forest. I ran the rest of the race pretty cleanly and fast. The navigation was mostly reading the broad contours or finding the right trail route to the control. The course, while not being overly technical, was very physically demanding. When I finished it I was more tired than after any other race of the summer. One of my biggest surprises when I finished the race. I felt like I ran a very solid race with few mistakes and even still, I was a good five to ten minutes back from the leader. This level of skill, in the nonelite category, really surprised and amazed, me and l found it cool to see such good orienteers.
After the races, I headed back to the United States. As I was going home I was surprised at how sad I was to be leaving. Not only was I sad about leaving the amazing terrain and races, I was also really going to miss all of the other juniors I had become friends with over the past month and had lived, trained, ate and played cards with. We were a fun group and really liked hanging out with each other. When I got home I took a little break from training to recover, but after that recovery, I was back in the woods. Being back in familiar terrain I realized how much better I got in Europe and how much faster I was now. It also helped me really enjoy the sport and show me how far I can still go.
In 2018, I set the goal of being selected to represent the U.S. at the Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC). A year of steady training, both physical and technical, led to good runs at the Junior Nationals in April; and, thanks to a generous grant from NEOC, I was on my way to Denmark!
When we first got to Denmark we had a week with all 18 U.S. athletes (JWOC team, JWOC alternates, and just very involved National Junior Program members) during which we did lots of technical training to get used to the Danish terrain. Danish terrain is quite different from the terrain here in New England—they barely have any rocks! Some of the woods barely had any undergrowth, because it was maintained, which made for some fast and easy running. Other areas had young pine trees that made for some thick green. During that week of training we worked to get our technical speed up, did team building exercises (check out the Junior Team Facebook page for some pretty entertaining videos), did strength training (before breakfast every morning as a full team), and, most importantly, played cards. Oh wait…that’s not right. Sorry. Orienteering was definitely the main focus….
After the first week, the JWOC team headed to the official JWOC accommodations, the dorms of a local university. Being in the official accommodation allowed us to get to know and socialize with teams from different countries. We all ate dinner together in the dining hall, and a lot of times we were joined by the South Africans and Lithuanians who we got to know quite well. The relationship building between teams is something that the International Orienteering Confederation prioritizes during JWOC.
The week of JWOC started with an opening ceremony in which all of the teams paraded through the host town. It was the first time all of the teams were together which was overwhelming, but also very exciting. Following the opening ceremony, we went to the model event for the long and sprint which allowed us to see the terrain and what the mapping style was like. The long training helped me to see what each type of green was vegetation-wise, which would be possible to push through, and which to avoid completely. While out in the woods there were athletes from many teams, so there were constantly people running near you which was interesting and very different from running in the U.S. For the sprint model the whole team walked around together and discussed mapping styles, especially what features would be mapped, and what wouldn’t. When we got back to the dorms we also attended the technical model. This involved learning the start procedure–when to get the GPS tracker, all the different SI Air checks, and what would happen at the start line with maps—as well as the types of control stands that would be used for each race, and the finish procedure.
The first race was the sprint which was in a small town about an hour away from the dorms. I didn’t have a perfect run, but it was a good way to experience my first JWOC race, and I knew I still had many to go. The second day was the long which required an interesting style of orienteering with lots of finding routes to connect trails and avoid climb. I made a lot of mistakes as I learned to deal with the pressure of international competition, and I physically crashed halfway through, but it was still fun.
Two days later it was time for the middle qualifiers—the best race of my week. With one three-ish minute mistake and limited others under 90 seconds, I managed to qualify for the B-final, which was quite exciting as a first year JWOC athlete. Sadly, the middle finals the following day and the relay the day after did not go as well as I had hoped. This did leave me extremely motivated for next year, though, and I learned a lot that I can take with me for years to come.
The JWOC races ended with a coaches race for which athletes from all over joined together to cheer on each other’s coaches, which was a cool bonding experience. The day after the team moved out of the dorm and spread all over as some headed back home and others stayed in Europe to travel and orienteer more.
I continued my travels in the UK, spending a week at the Scottish Six Days. I stayed at the event campsite where many juniors from the UK were also staying, so I got to know them a bit. It was a really interesting week with many different types of terrain which required different skills. Some days were a lot more technical and others less so, requiring more physical speed. I was able to apply my experience from Denmark, and with that came a number of strong races. There were 28 athletes in F17-18, and I finished 8th overall.
NEOC’s generous grant helped to make this trip possible. Thank you to everyone that supported my trip to Europe and my year of training—I couldn’t have done it without your support.
The biggest event of the international racing scene, the World Orienteering Championships, took place in Norway in the middle of August. Team USA had some outsanding performances. Anton Salmenkylä (CSU) finished 37th in the middle distance final, just over 8 minutes behind the world champion Olav Lundanes of Norway. This was the best U.S. men’s middle distance result at WOC of all time, improving on Brian May’s 44th place from WOC 2003. The men’s relay team (Morten Jorgensen, Anton Salmenkylä, Greg Ahlswede) ran very well, finishing as the 20th nation – the best U.S. men’s result since 1991, when considerably fewer countries participated in WOC.
The women’s team also had strong results, led by Alison Crocker’s 41st place in the long distance and Åsne Skram Tromborg’s 49th place in the middle distance. As a result of the U.S. women’s successful performances during WOC, Team USA has been promoted to “Tier 2 nation” status, meaning that we will be able to field at least two women in the long distance final in the next forest WOC (2021 in Czechia). Note that WOC in 2020 in Denmark will only be contested in the sprint distances, with subsequent WOCs alternating between “forest” and “urban” every other year.
You can see full WOC results and maps here.
Commentary from Boris Granovskiy (U.S. National Team member):
The 2019 World Orienteering Championships (WOC) got underway today in Ostfold, Norway with the middle distance qualification race.
This year’s WOC is the first forest-only WOC since before the introduction of the sprint discipline in 2001. Forest and sprint WOCs are set to alternate annually starting this year.
In the middle distance qualifiers, top 15 competitors in each heat qualified for the finals outright. Additionally, the top runner from each country that did not have an automatic qualifier also made it through to the finals, up to a total of 60 finalists.
The top U.S. performance of the day was by Anton Salmenkylä (CSU / Helsingin Suunnistajat), who finished 20th in his heat, less than 2 minutes from qualifying outright. He will race in the middle distance finals on Friday along with Åsne Skram Trømborg, who had the best U.S. result on the women’s side, finishing 24th in her heat.
The full results can be found here, and the U.S. results are summarized below.
WOC continues tomorrow with the Long Distance final. Racing for the U.S. are Jordan Laughlin, Morten Jorgensen, Syd Fisher, and Ali Crocker. You can follow the races live here. Go Team USA!
Plc Name Heat Time Time behind leader 20 Anton Salmenkylä Men 1 30:25 +06:05 24 Åsne Skram Trømborg Women 2 39:39 +10:23 29 Alison Campbell Women 3 49:40 +20:55 30 Eric Bone Men 2 34:41 +09:52 33 Sydney Fisher Women 1 61:14 +32:15 34 Gregory Ahlswede Men 3 37:54 +12:33 35 Jordan Laughlin Men 1 44:41 +20:21
Commentary from Boris:
On Wednesday the first medals of WOC 2019 were handed out, and long distance world champions were crowned. For the fourth year in a row on both the men’s and women’s sides, the champions are Olav Lundanes (Norway) and Tove Alexandersson (Sweden). Olav won an exciting close race, defeating teammate (and still junior!) Kaspar Fosser by 1:39, while Tove won in dominant fashion, finishing a whole 6:16 ahead of silver medalist Lina Strand (Sweden).
Team USA had four competitors, and four solid performances. On the women’s side, Ali Crocker held the lead when she finished and ended up in 41st place. Sydney Fisher ended up 62nd in her first WOC long distance race. Among the men, Morten Jorgensen finished just ahead of Jordan Laughlin, as they took places 59 and 60.
You can read the race report on World Of O, and see the full results on the WOC website.
Follow Team USA on Facebook (@usorienteeringteam) or Instagram, as they have been great at posting photos and videos direct from the races!
Commentary from Boris:
Today at WOC was the middle distance final. The story at the top of the leaderboard was the same as for the long distance, with Olav Lundanes (Norway) and Tove Alexandersson (Sweden) becoming double gold medalists, albeit by much smaller margins than on Wednesday. Lundanes held off Sweden’s Gustav Bergman by 11 seconds, while Tove had just five seconds to spare in her win over Switzerland’s Simona Aebersold. (Places 3-7 were about 1:30 behind Simona, but within 7 seconds of each other!)
On the women’s side, Team USA was represented by Åsne Skram Trømborg, who was in the lead early on and finished in an excellent 49th place. Running later in the day, Anton Salmenkylä did even better, finishing 37th, just over 8 minutes behind the world champion. This was the best U.S. men’s middle distance result at WOC of all time, improving on Brian May’s 44th place from WOC 2003. Congratulations Anton and Åsne on some great races! You can see full results here and maps and route choices here.
Tomorrow WOC concludes with the relay races. The U.S. teams, in running order, are as follows:
Women
Alison Crocker
Åsne Skram Trømborg
Alison Campbell
Men
Morten Jørgensen
Anton Salmenkylä
Greg Ahlswede
You can see the full start list and follow the race live here. Go Team USA!!
Below are the selections for this year’s World Orienteering Championships in Østfold, Norway, August 12–17. We saw some great performances at the Team Trials at West Point, and we hope all the athletes are able to stay/get healthy and train well. for those of you who didn’t make the team this year, please keep training and competing. I enjoyed watching you all race (except Greg limping into the Long finish).
Thank you to West Point (USMAOC) for hosting a great Trials, and to my fellow Review Panel Members. This year’s Review Panel (RP) consisted of Peggy Dickison, Tori Campbell, Will Hawkins, and Glen Tryson. If you have any questions, please direct them to Peggy and/or Erin Schirm, depending on your question.
Middle Qualification, Tues, Aug 13 (Final on Aug 16):
Anton, Greg, Eric, Jordan | Syd, Åsne, Alison
Long, Wed, Aug 14:
Morten, Jordan | Ali, Sydney
Forest Relay, Sat, Aug 17:
Anton, Greg, Morten | Ali, Åsne, Alison
Pavlina Brautigam qualified for the Middle by finishing second at the Team Trials, but has declined the automatic selection.
We have chosen to not name any overall team alternates.
In the announcement for race assignments , numbers in parentheses represent placing at Team Trials in the relevant discipline. “Performance” indicates the athlete either petitioned or was injured during Team Trials and was selected based on performance in National Ranking Events, World Ranking Events, or other events with a highly competitive field.
In selecting the best athletes for each race, the Review Panel considered automatic qualifications, strengths, and maximum number of races each individual could race competitively. For the remaining positions after automatic qualifications, the Review Panel considered whether petitioner or injured athlete’s body of performance indicated higher potential than another athlete’s documented team trials performance prior to naming an athlete based on performance.
Asterisks indicate we leave the selection of the men’s relay reserve (if needed) and the final call on Alison’s injury recovery for the WOC relay to the chair of the ESC, to be made during WOC as necessary. We wish all our athletes strong, healthy training in the upcoming months. Go, Team USA!
The annual OUSA Competitive Awards are given to top American orienteers in several categories for outstanding competitive performance over the course of the past year. The Awards Committee members are Susan Grandjean, Boris Granovskiy, Linda Kohn, Patrick Nuss, and Ken Walker Sr.
This is the ninth year for these awards, and the fourth year that Orienteering USA members had the opportunity to vote for the candidates. The committee thanks all those who submitted nominations and who took the time to vote for your top OUSA athletes. We had a near-record number of votes cast this year! The vote totals were used as the main component in final award selection.
The Orienteer, Junior, and Comet of the Year award winners each receive a $500 travel grant to help them continue to improve their skills. Additionally, the Honorable Mentions in the three individual categories will receive $100 travel grants.
The Awards Committee would like to thank two anonymous donors for their generous contributions to the travel grants.
Previous Competitive Award winners
Here are the 2018 winners and recipients of honorable mentions (HM). Congratulations to all the winners!
Awarded to the best U.S. orienteer in 2018, based on results at national and international events
Greg was among the very best U.S. orienteers at almost every race this year, with top-3 finishes at NAOC (3rd – long, 2nd – middle, 2nd – sprint) and at the U.S. Champs (2nd – long, middle, sprint).
Greg also finished 54th in the WOC long distance final and anchored Team USA to NAOC relay victory.
Ali made a strong return to the world elite in 2018, finishing 36th in the sprint and 40th in the middle at WOC, Team USA’s best two individual performances.
She also exchanged in 10th place after the first leg of the WOC relay and anchored Team USA to relay victory at NAOC. A win in the long distance at NAOC earned Ali an automatic qualifying spot for WOC 2019.
In his first year as a senior, Anton distinguished himself by qualifying for the middle distance finals at the European Championships in Switzerland, finishing 48th against an extremely strong field. Other highlights include 55th place in the middle distance at WOC and a gold in the middle distance at NAOC, earning an automatic spot for WOC 2019.
Also at NAOC, Anton was part of the relay-winning US Team and finished 3rd in the sprint and 6th in the long distance.
Awarded to the best U.S. orienteer in 2018 under the age of 21, based on results at national and international events
In her final year as a junior, Tyra qualified for the senior WOC team for the second year in a row and was perhaps the top U.S. junior at JWOC, where she finished 66th, 63rd, and 72nd in the three individual distances.
At NAOC, Tyra anchored the dominant U.S. junior women’s relay team to victory and added a sprint gold, middle distance silver, and long distance bronze in F-20 to her collection.
Though still an M-18 runner, AJ had a dominant year in North American racing, sweeping the individual golds at NAOC in M18. He is ranked 1st in the U.S. in M-18 and 4th in M-20 and is the reigning U.S. High School Varsity Champion.
AJ tried his hand at racing against the seniors at the U.S. Champs, winning a bronze medal in sprint in M21.
Awarded to the US orienteer who has made the most progress in their orienteering results during the 2018 season
As just a 15-year-old, Keegan made the jump from the Orange course to Green in M-18 and finished the year ranked 2nd in that category.
He also earned the bronze medal at the U.S. High School Varsity Championships, and had top-10 finishes at the Billygoat and the Harriman Fall Goat races.
Sydney improved from a ranking of 8th to 4th in the F21+ category over the course of the year, raising her OUSA score from 74.75 to 78.85. She was named to the 2018 USA team for the first time as a development member. After training hard through the spring, she came in 3rd in points at her first team trials and was named an alternate to the WOC team for the first time.
She also recorded her first solo overall wins in Rogaining with wins at Green Corn Moon (6 hr) and Legend of the Dogman (18 hr) and earned a silver medal at the U.S. Champs in the long distance.
Awarded for the best team competitive performance during the 2018 season
Team USA went all the way to the Yukon, Canada and took the Björn Kjellström Cup back from the Canadians. This was a true team effort, as four different team members (Ali Crocker, Tori Borish, Morten Jorgensen, and Anton Salmenkyla) winning individual gold medals, and both the men’s and women’s relay teams claiming golds as well.
Fifteen different competitors contributed to Team USA’s victory.
Composed of Thomas Laraia, David Runde, and Martin Borge Heir, the team finished as the 15th country, just 17 minutes behind winning Norway.
This is the best-ever U.S. men’s relay finish at JWOC, improving on last year’s 18th place.
To be awarded any of the individual awards a nominee has to be a USA citizen, and must be a member of Orienteering USA in good standing during the current calendar year. Additionally, for the Junior Orienteer of the Year award, the nominee has to be no older than 20 at the end of the calendar year. To be selected for the Orienteering Team of the Year award, all team members have to be Orienteering USA members and represent the U.S. or an OUSA chartered club in competition.
Competitors in any forms of orienteering are eligible, including Foot O, Ski O, Mountain Bike O, Trail O, and Rogaining.
The award winners were selected by a committee appointed by Orienteering USA from a list of candidates nominated by members of the U.S. and international orienteering communities, with voting by OUSA members again guiding the selection this year.
Looking to take your junior orienteering skills to the next level? TJOC is your summer break destination. This intensive 6-day skills-based orienteering training camp is specifically designed for 13–19-year-old orienteers with orange-level course skills and above.
NTOA again hosts this year’s training camp from June 2–7, 2019, and all training, lodging, and meals take place in the air-conditioned spaces at Sid Richardson Scout Ranch in Bridgeport, TX.
Camp cost is $300 for junior participants and $100 for adult leaders.
Many of the best youth orienteers in the nation have graduated from TJOC. Join future champions at TJOC 2019!
Registration is open now! Sign up today!
Contact TJOC Director, Lt Col William Malpass, at wmalpass@nullpasadenaisd.org or visit the TJOC website at hoc.us.orienteering.org/texas-junior-orienteering-camp-2019 for more information.
