Category: WOC Team

SUMMER 2026 ROUND UP

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:

Official Website.

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.

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 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!

2025 WOC Recap

The 2025 World Orienteering Championships (WOC) took place in Kuopio, Finland, July 8-12 2025. The US sent a team of four men and four women to compete in a program consisting of a Middle Qualification, Middle Final, Long Final, and Relay. Meet the team on the blog!

Anthony Riley and Ali Crocker both qualified for the Middle Final, and finished 43rd and 47th, respectively. Ali then had the best US finish in the Long Final, at 41st, while Joe Barrett had the best finish for the men in 46th. The men’s and women’s relay teams wrapped up the week with 28th and 23rd place finishes.

Results, Maps and Photos

Team USA photos by Evalin Brautigam.

March OUSA Member Spotlight: Ali Crocker

Ali Crocker running at 2022 Masters Nationals.

This is a transcript of an interview with Ali in March, 2025. It has been edited for clarity and length.

Cristina Luis: Ali, I would like to hear about your athletic background, from the beginning, and how that melds into orienteering. 

Alison Crocker: From the very beginning? Okay.

As early as you want to go. It doesn’t have to be the very beginning.

Okay. I think at my earliest ages I was dragged along to running races with my parents. Totally loved doing all the kids’ races. So I was active from the beginning, and then probably the first serious sport I did was cross-country skiing, up through young juniors. I went to a ski academy for one year–where Alex Jospe currently coaches. I just went there for the winter trying to take skiing really seriously. But then I went to a boarding school where there was more snow than at my house so I could ski but still do academics. And it was there that I discovered two new sports. First, I discovered rowing, which I took seriously for quite a while during all of high school.

(more…)

2025 WOC Team Selected

The WOC Review Panel is pleased to announce the team to represent the US at the 2025 World Orienteering Championships (WOC) in Kuopio, Finland, from 7 to 12 July. Regional champs in the Middle and Long races—for North Americans, last summer’s NAOC races—earn personal starts in those WOC races. Joseph Barrett thus earned a long start at this year’s WOC, and Ali Crocker earned both a middle and a long start.

2025 WOC Team

Men:

  • Joseph Barrett
  • Ricardo Schaniel
  • Anthony Riley
  • Thomas Laraia
  • 1st alternate, Greg Ahlswede
  • 2nd alternate, Anton Salmenkylä

Women:

  • Ali Crocker
  • Lily Addicott
  • Alison Campbell
  • Evalin Brautigam
  • 1st alternate, Bridget Hall
  • 2nd alternate, Siri Christopherson

Congratulations to all the athletes! We wish them the best of luck in the European forests.

Peggy Dickison, National Team ESC Chair & Chair of WOC Review Panel
WOC Review Panel: Glen Tryson, Jeff Saeger, Ioana Flemming, Peggy Dickison

Western States Champs / US Team Trials

Feb 28-Mar 2, 2025

Host: Bay Area Orienteering Club

Venues:

  • Friday: Presidio, San Francisco, CA
  • Saturday & Sunday: Calero County Park, San Jose, CA

This event served as the Team Trials for the Junior World Orienteering Champs (Fri, Sat, Sun) and the World Orienteering Champs (Sat, Sun). Additionally, combined scores for the best two of three days were used to determined the winners of the Western State Champs, an informal competition for orienteers residing in one of the western states (those states with a peak above 10,000′).

Photos by Evalin Brautigam and Cristina Luis

Results, Photos, and Maps

2025 WOC & JWOC Team Trials Announced

The National Team Executive Steering Committee is pleased to announce that the WOC and JWOC Team Trials will be held together at BAOC’s event next March 1-2. The weekend events will take place in Calero County Park, with a middle race on Saturday and a classic on Sunday. There will also be a sprint on Friday afternoon, with the location pending permit approval. The sprint will likely be an NRE; the weekend events definitely will be (and will also serve as the Western State Championships). There will not be a European trials event for WOC this year.

Petitions will be accepted for both WOC and JWOC teams, but Trials attendance is preferred.
For WOC, the Saturday and Sunday events will count for the WOC Team selection. For JWOC, all three events will count for JWOC selection.

While the event is earlier than usual, we hope that knowing well in advance will allow athletes to train adequately. For the northern tier athletes this can be difficult if it’s a snowy winter; we understand but believe that our top athletes are up to the challenge.

More details will follow. The website doesn’t have a lot of information yet, but BAOC is looking forward to hosting the Team athletes and others who want to try out for one of the teams or be there to support them. The concurrent Western States Champs will include all courses and classes for the non-Trialers.

Please see the JWOC 2025 Selection Criteria for details on how the JWOC team will be selected. The 2025 WOC Selection Criteria will be published in early December.