US Youth Ski-Orienteering Team Selected for 2025 European Championships in Finland

The US Ski-Orienteering Executive Steering Committee is pleased to announce that the US Team for the 2025 European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships has been selected based on past results and perceived potential. The races will take place March 19-23, 2025 in Posio, Finland well north of the Artic Circle. One must be 17 or under to race in European Championships and since there are no World Championships for youth, this is the major international ski-orienteering event for people under the age of 17 world-wide. The 2025 team to European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships consists of: Erik Fey (16 years old), Mark Fey (13 soon 14), Liam Browne (16), and Euell Browne (14 soon 15). There is great excitement in the US ski-orienteering community since most expect that this team will be the strongest youth ski-orienteering boys team that the US has ever fielded.  

Erik Fey at the 2024 Open Nordic Ski-Orienteering Championships in Estonia

Erik Fey will be looking to improve upon his 14th place at European Championships last year.  He will be joined on the team this year for the first time by his younger brother Mark Fey who hopes to have solid results. Erik and Mark both have extensive ski-orienteering experience and currently live in Oslo, Norway and do orienteering and ski-orienteering for the strong Nydalens Skiklub which has other strong ski-orienteers as members such as 2024 Middle Distance and Sprint Relay World Champion in Ski-Orienteering Anna Ulvensøen. They also actively do cross-country skiing for Hemming IL. Their US club is Rochester Orienteering Club.  

This year the US team is full of brothers and the Feys will be joined for the first time by Liam Browne and Euell Browne of Kalispell, MT. Liam is a strong experienced cross-country skier who qualified to be part of the Intermountain Division Ski Team to US Junior Nationals in cross-country skiing last year. He and his younger brother Euell are members of the Glacier Nordic Comp Pro Team which ensures they have extensive regular training year-round. Great lovers of outdoor endurance sports, Liam and Euell were attracted to ski-orienteering thanks to a ski-orienteering race organized in nearby Missoula, MT by Boris Granovskiy and other members of Grizzly Orienteering three years ago. Since then, they have been excited about orienteering and ski-orienteering and rapidly gaining experience and strong results mostly in their area. They are now interested in taking their ski-orienteering racing to the next level and look forward to seeing how they stack up internationally. Look out world, here they come! They are now members of the relatively new, but rapidly becoming quite strong, Grizzly Orienteering Club which would probably win the award for the most improved orienteering club in the US in the last several years if there was such an award.  

Liam Browne at the 2024 US Cross-Country Skiing Junior Nationals

Unfortunately, it is expensive to travel to and race at European Championships. As such, donations to support our increasingly strong US Youth Ski-Orienteering Team would be greatly appreciated and can be made online at orienteeringusa.org. Please note that your donation is for the US Youth Ski-Orienteering Team if it is. For more information about the US Ski-Orienteering Team please contact Team Coach Carl Fey at carlffey@nullgmail.com.

OUSA Welcomes New Communications Manager

Orienteering USA is pleased to announce that Cristina Luis is stepping into the role of National Communications Manager. Cristina will manage content for OUSA’s website, social media channels, and email newsletter. The email addresses  webmaster@nullorienteeringusa.org and newsletter@nullorienteeringusa.org have now transitioned to Cristina.

We are excited to have Cristina on board and look forward to working with her.

We also express thanks to those volunteers who jumped in to handle these duties when Clinton Morse passed away. Barb Bryant took the lead in filling in for Clinton. Evalin Brautigam has been taking lots of photos and generating social media content and Matt Craig (technology VP) and Jordan Laughlin (Google admin) have provided tech support.

Many thanks to these volunteers and anyone else who may have helped Barb and welcome to Cristina!

2024 Silva Award Winner: Clinton Morse

Clinton Morse is posthumously awarded the 2024 Silva Award for his decades of service to the sport of orienteering in and around Connecticut and especially across the nation. Clinton’s untimely death in July has been a sad and terrible loss for his family, friends, and the local and national orienteering community. He was always eager to take on significant projects and assist others with thorny issues, especially technical ones. His absence is leaving a gaping hole for so many.

Photo by Nadim Ahmed


Clinton became active in orienteering and WCOC over 20 years ago. He did the field work and drafting for several local maps including Gay City State Park, Crandalls Town Park, Coops Sawmill, and the University of Connecticut (UConn) sprint map. He was currently working on completely re-mapping and expanding Brooksvale Park near New Haven, CT. He had plans to help the club revise some of their other outdated maps. He was the manager of much of WCOC’s event equipment and set courses for numerous local events, including a Billygoat. He also organized national events himself. In the spring of 2024, he single-handedly put on the Sprint Team Trials for the US World Orienteering Championship team at UConn—an event that had Clinton as mapmaker, course setter, registrar, and meet director. Clinton was living proof that one person can put on a national event, especially with some helpers on event day. It was a resounding success.

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2024 UNO Camping Weekend Event Recap

September 6-8, 2024

This annual event takes place at Pawtuckaway State Park in New Hampshire, an area known for its enormous boulders and difficult orienteering. This year’s event included one National Ranking Event day in addition to the traditional canoe-o and Wicked Hard Night-O (WHNO).

Host club: Up North Orienteers

Event Website

Results

Ski-O Team Call and News

New ESC

SKI-O Executive Steering Committee was elected by team athletes at the end of last season. The 5 elected to serve a 2 year term are: Carl Fey, Anna Vogel, Ken Walker Sr. with athlete representatives Chris Burnham and Adrian Owens.

Apply for Ski-O Teams by 10/31

Call for Senior, Junior and Youth Ski-O teams for the Winter 2025 World Cup and other championship races in Europe: 3 World Cup weeks; the World Junior Ski-Orienteering Championships, the European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships

We are in a phase of rebuilding the US ski-o team and we encourage athletes who have not been on the US ski-o team previously to apply.  We are especially interested in attracting athletes who are 25 and under.  Also, we know we have two capable male youth ski-orienteers who will be trying out to race for the US in European Youth Championships and we are thus especially interested in applications from a third youth athlete to make a complete relay team.  We will not be holding team trials this year and instead the teams will be selected by the US Ski-O Team Executive Steering Committee which consists of Adrian Owens, Carl Fey, Anna Vogel, Chris Burnham, and Ken Walker Sr.
 
To apply please send the following information: key ski-o or foot-o race results over the past two years, key skiing results over the past two years, an estimation of how many hours you have trained over the past year (or Attackpoint username), your goals for the races you are applying to attend, your goal for ski-o in five years, the name of your club, where you currently live, your nationality, if you are a current member of OUSA, and your date of birth.  To be eligible to apply for the US Ski-Orienteering Team you must be an American citizen and be a member of Orienteering USA (anyone can join).  Please clarify in your application letter if you are applying to take part in a specific race or also applying to be considered for a standing team, and which age group: youth, junior or senior team.

Please submit the above information to: Adrian Owens at aowens@nullsterlingcollege.edu by October 31, 2024 for fullest consideration.  However, you can submit applications at any time even after this date.  The US ski-o ESC reserves the right not to select people after October 31, 2024 to race in international races for the US in 2025 if adding the person causes logistical issues for the team, and late applications may be discriminated against.  Please feel free to contact Adrian Owens aowens@nullsterlingcollege.edu or Carl Fey carlffey@nullgmail.com or any member of the US Ski-O Team ESC if you have any questions about racing for the US Ski-O Team. 

Key International Ski-Orienteering Races in 2025 include:

  • Round 1 World Cup Races in Norway (Near Lillehammer), January 10-12;
  • Round 2 World Cup Races in Germany (about 2 hours from Munich) February 13-17 (World Masters Championships will take place at the same location at the same time, but any athlete can attend World Masters Championships on their own without needing to be selected by the US Ski-O Team ESC;
  • Round 3 World Cup Races, European Championships M21/F21, World Junior Championships, European Youth Championships (need to be a maximum of 17 years old by December 31, 2025).  These races are likely to be in Idre Fjäll March 14-19.  The date and location is still pending.  These races are likely to be covered live on Swedish TV. 

Please note that the US Ski-O Team ESC has decided to prioritize the Round 3 races this year, but athletes are welcomed to apply to attend any of the races. 

Communications Job

Orienteering USA seeks a part-time contractor to work remotely to serve as Communications Manager for the National Federation.

Duties to include:

  • Serve as OUSA website content manager
  • Prepare and publish monthly OUSA email newsletter
  • Administer OUSA social media accounts
  • Create content for all OUSA communication outlets
  • Prepare and publish an annual hardcopy magazine for OUSA members
  • Other duties as agreed

Candidates should have a computer with internet access. Experience with website and social media administration, writing, and publishing preferred.

Specific contract details and compensation negotiable. Currently budgeted as $1,000/month plus $600/event travel stipend to certain OUSA competitions.

Please send resume and cover letter via email to Clare Durand, president@nullorienteeringusa.org by Friday, September 27, 2024.