The Executive Steering Committee is pleased to announce the promotion of four athletes to the US National Team bringing the TeamUSA roster to 36 athletes for 2022.
Sergei will be competing in Denmark next month as part of our 6-person team at the 2022 Sprint World Orienteering Championships (WOC). In July, Anna & Holden will be part of our 10-person roster competing at the 2022 Junior World Championships (JWOC) in Portugal and Tyler joins our 12-person squad heading to Switzerland for the biennial 2022 World University Orienteering Championships (WUOC) in mid August.
We’re looking forward to a great summer of international racing with full teams traveling to all the major competitions, including the The World Games right here in the US. Congratulations to all the athletes on the 2022 TeamUSA Roster!!
Be sure to visit the National Team page on the website for details on all 2022 team members and the international events they have been selected for this year. Historical info on previous years teams can be found in the OUSA Library. Thanks to all the volunteers on the Executive Steering Committee and the various team selection committees for their efforts in putting together such a great roster of athletes to represent us!
Orienteering USA is pleased to welcome its newest chartered club, Sky Pilots Endurance Navigators, to its ranks. Sky Pilots is a multi-disciplinary club focusing on orienteering, mountaineering and endurance events – often with unusual event formats. They are located in western Colorado.
The club’s founders Eric Robinson and Ginny LaForme are ultrarunners and former North American rogaining age group champions. They met in Colorado’s San Juan mountains. In a rather strange coincidence, each discovered that the other had for years been hosting an informal run called Las Trampas, unknown to each other and in two different states. In 2004, they married, and in 2018, they moved to Ouray, Colorado and have been busy exploring and mapping the surrounding public lands ever since.
This past weekend the club hosted a ‘Backyard Ultra‘ in which competitors run a 4.167 mile course in beautiful Ouray, CO. Sounds easy enough, right? Well every hour, on the hour, athletes must line up and do it again until only one person remains to start the hourly lap (aka ‘yards’) and complete it. This year’s winner toughed out 35 yards for a total of 145.95 miles. Yowsa!
Perhaps running the same 4.167 loop every hour isn’t your cup of tea? Well coming up on June 4th the Sky Pilots will present the Lost One Standing, a unique mashup of Backyard Ultra with orienteering and rogaining. This 24 hour event, starting at 9am Saturday, will feature 24 different courses on 1:7500 maps with at least 6 each at beginner, intermediate and advanced difficulty levels.
At the beginning of each hour, select, start and complete one of the courses (1-6 controls per course) – you can only do each course once so choose wisely. Mass start at the top of each hour and you must complete the course within 60 minutes to remain in the primary competition. If you can’t get around the course in under an hour (or can’t get back to the start line for the next hour), you will drop down to the secondary competition in which you can continue to participate, but no longer constrained by the one hour limit. Starts in the secondary competition are every half hour, but you can take as long as needed to complete your course, rest between courses etc.
Western Colorado has some amazingly scenic terrain so be sure to check out their webpage for event information and to ogle the gorgeous scenery. You can also join their active public group on Facebook or follow them on Strava.
The selection committee for the World University Orienteering Championships (WUOC) is pleased to announce the 2022 team for this biennial competition. The committee members are Linda Kohn, Peggy Dickison, Will Enger and Jeff Saeger.
The competition will be held in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland from August 16-21, 2022 and is open to athletes between ages 18 & 25 that are currently registered in a degree/diploma granting program of study at a recognized institution of higher learning or having earned said degree within the prior 12 month period.
Congratulations to the following athletes who have been selected to represent TeamUSA at this year’s World University Orienteering Championships!!
The WOC Selection Committee (Jeff Saeger, Glen Tryson & Peggy Dickison) is pleased to announce the US Team for this year’s World Orienteering Championships in Denmark. This years championships, to be held June 26-30, will be the first WOC to focus exclusively on the sprint discipline (aka Sprint WOC). Future WOC’s will alternate between Forest WOC & Sprint WOC formats.
The first event will be a Sprint Relay in the town of Kolding which includes an old town area with asymmetrical street patterns including the castle Koldinghus dating from around 1200 that rises about 20m above the town.
Image: Hubertus, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The second event will consist of qualifying and final rounds of a Knock-Out Sprint in and around the military fortifications of Fredericia, characterized by hilly ramparts now covered by grass and forest. Within the fortifications lies the town proper with a symmetrical road network divided into quadrants.
Image: CC BY-SA 1.0 via WikiTravel
The final events of the championship will be the Individual Sprint qualification and final races in the Danish town of Vejle including a complex old town area with shopping streets, backyards and narrow alleyways. Modern residential areas with public buildings and schools are also present. To the north lies a steep 90m slope with deep ravines and partly vegetated with deciduous forest areas. To the south lies a flat area cut by multiple railways and two water courses passable by bridges and, in some cases, tunnels.
Privat fotograf, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Because the sprint relay team consists of 2 men + 2 women, TeamUSA will be sending three men and three women to this year’s competition. Congratulations to the following athletes selected to represent the US at this years Sprint WOC:
Because the relay is the first event, it has been pre-determined that Joe Barrett, Ricardo Schaniel, Tori Borish, and Evalin Brautigam will run the relay, running order to be determined.
There will also be a WOC Tour held concurrently with 3 Sprint races held on the same terrains the WOC competitors will face plus 3 Forest Middle distance races for spectators to enjoy. Come to Denmark and cheer on TeamUSA and get a solid week of races in for yourself as well!
The JWOC Selection Committee (Tori Borish, Greg Ahlswede and Jon Torrance) is pleased to announce the 2022 US Team selected to compete at the Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) to be held July 10-16 in Aguiar da Beira, Portugal.
National Team member Evalin Brautigam, Head Coach & Teacher at Orienteering South Australia, will accompany the team to Portugal in the role of head coach.
Congratulations to all our 2022 JWOC athletes!
The National Team Executive Steering Committee (ESC) is pleased to announce the addition of two new athletes to the Junior Squad roster.
Oriana Riley from the Delaware Valley Orienteering Association is currently attending Stanford University. She has been competing consistently this year at the Georgia O-Fest in January including the Sprint WRE in F-21+, the Big Woods Classic NRE in March and most recently the West Point NRE held this past weekend in New York where she took part in the WOC Team Trials in F-21+. She is currently nationally ranked 6th in F-20.
Zoe Sibthorp from the Cascade Orienteering Club joins Oriana on the Junior Squad and currently attends Woodinville Montessori High School in Washington. Zoe is currently ranked 5th in F-20 having recently competed at the Lighthouse Middle NRE in February and the OUSA Junior Nationals in early April.
Congratulations to both of you and we look forward to your continued success as members of TeamUSA!!
The Youth Mapping Program (YMP) Committee is seeking volunteer(s) who would be willing to help us with outreach to identify new schools and non-profit youth organizations who would be interested in a map. This role involves:
For more information about the Youth Mapping Program, see the Youth Mapping Program page on the OUSA website. Interested people should contact the YMP Committee at YMPCommittee@nullorienteeringusa.org.
After many, many years of volunteer service maintaining the US foot orienteering rolling rankings, OUSA’s longtime rankings coordinator Valerie Meyer has decided to step aside. OUSA therefore stands in need of one or more people to do the work of keeping the rankings updated as National Ranking Event (NRE) results come in.
The required qualifications are modest – passable computer literacy, including basic skills in using spreadsheet software, and access to Microsoft Excel are really all that is required, given a willingness to put in one to two hours work in the aftermath of every event including one or more NREs (perhaps more for particularly well-attended events or events with a lot of participants new to the rankings, e.g Junior Nationals).
If that sounds like you and keeping the OUSA rankings system going is something you think would give you a warm glow, please contact VP of Competition Jon Torrance at jon.torrance@nullorienteeringusa.org.
