More insight from orienteering coach Alex Azarov.
The purpose of this article is to present my approach to route analysis. Using four real-life
examples, I will demonstrate the complete process: detecting a problem, finding the
underlying causes of the error, and developing specific training recommendations to prevent
it from happening again.
The US SkiO National team is seeking applicants for the youth, junior, and senior team for the 2027 World Ski Orienteering Championships in Lillehammer, Norway, Feb. 9-14, 2027.
Following our junior team’s good results in 2025 and 2026, we are excited to build a larger junior team, especially adding girls and women.
Junior competitors interested in joining the national team may apply to the standing team to be ready for more information as it becomes available.
Questions about the junior team can be directed to Junior team coach Carl Fey.
Applications for juniors and seniors must include:
Applications should be sent to ESC chair Adrian Owens by email at: OwensAdrian67@nullgmail.com before Oct 15, 2026.
Host: Columbia River Orienteering Club (CROC)
Four events over four days, with one NRE and the annual Western States Orienteering Championships.
This year’s Deschutes Daze was impacted by wildfires and associated smoke in the area, with several venue changes. The event was able to take place, with four days of orienteering made possible by some last-minute course setting heroism on the part of the organizers!
Photos by Robert Rodriguez
The 2026 edition of the Texas Junior Orienteering Camp took place over 6 days where participants were treated to 18 different orienteering trainings/races at the Sid Richardson Scout Ranch, near Runaway Bay, Texas.
The map was also used for the 2025 Junior Nationals. This was the 26th year for the camp, which started in 1998. The camp has been growing in numbers since COVID. This year, the camp was at (or maybe slightly over) max capacity, with 80 students and 30 adults/staff, coming from Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Georgia, Texas and California.
Make sure to check out the Livelox for the TJOC Marathon!
Interested in TJOC? The NTOA Youth page has more!
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
The 2026 European Youth Orienteering Championships (EYOC) took place June 25-27 in Slovenia. The US sent nine athletes across four age classes (M/W16 and M/W18). Meet them on the US Team Blog!
Photos by Natalia Fey, Ryan Dunlap, and Frank Neumann
The US sent a full team of six young men and six young women to this year’s Junior World Orienteering Championships, which took place in Karlskrona, Sweden.
Read all about the event from the athletes’ perspective in the US Orienteering Team’s blog.
All photos by Evalin Brautigam
The 2026 JWOC competition week kicked off with the Sprint competition in Trossö, the historic centre of Karlskrona. The courses proved challenging, as the organizers used artificial barriers to make selecting a route a little bit tricker.
The Mixed Sprint Relay is a race between teams of four athletes–two women and two men—in a fast, head-to-head competition with a total winning time of under one hour. The top US team was USA 2, with Sophie Howes, Mori Finlayson-Johnecheck, Mikhail Biryukov, and Anna Green, coming in 48th.
The individual forest races took place in typical western Swedish terrain, which is to say that it was pretty tough! The women faced a 9.9 km course and the men a 12.6 km course, and the transition from sprint the day before to a long day in the forest was a challenging one for many.
The final race of 2026 JWOC was the forest relay, which consists of teams of three men and three women, racing separately. The best US women’s team finished 24th , while the best US men’s Team finished 21st.
Orienteering USA will send three athletes to the 2026 European Trail Orienteering Championships in Poland. Clare Durand (LAOC) and Russ Myer (CRNA) will compete in the Open class and Anne Maker (CRNA) will compete in the P class. ETOC is the premiere TrailO event for 2026 as there is no World Championship this year. ETOC will take place in Szecznik, Poland from July 29 to August 3.
By Gord Hunter (Suncoast Orienteering)
The United States is a huge country with a huge variety of topography. Some topographical
areas are considered very suitable for orienteering. Some are not.
Louisiana with its many miles of lowlands, often swampy, sometimes flooded, often filmed as a
great habitat for alligators and dangerous snakes is seldom mentioned as a great venue for
orienteering. But perhaps we are judging too harshly and dismissing Louisiana too quickly
without a proper look.
Consider that:
The leader is LCDR Aaron Bates who joined the staff of St Amant High School in Ascension
Parish in 2023. Back in 2023 the JROTC leaders in the Parish got together to hold an activities
camp to interest their cadets in various competitive activities. Bates, it seems, was the ‘new guy’ amongst a group of leaders who know little to nothing about orienteering. Inevitably he ‘drew the short straw’ and was assigned to teach orienteering. “At least I knew a little bit about land navigation from my military career,” offered Bates in a recent exchange of e-mails.
Through a mutual JROTC contact Bates wrote to me asking about making orienteering-style
maps in his area. I made two (remotely), one their school grounds and one of some nearby but
seemingly quite wet forest. Apparently, the maps were put to good use as in 2026 St Amant HS
JROTC is seen representing their area at the Navy JROTC Orienteering Nationals held near
Gainesville FL, a rapid growth for a relatively small school in an area where orienteering is not
the hot topic of conversation around many dinner tables.
But here’s bigger news. I hadn’t heard from LCDR Bates in some time. Then a message comes:
could I make an orienteering map of a Scout camp some hour away from St Amant as the
parish JROTC were going to be holding an orienteering teaching and training camp culminating
in a competition at Avondale Scout Camp. “Of course, I can make a map,” I wrote back.
Given my foregone opinion of southern Louisiana terrain, I wasn’t expecting much. But what a
gem! Contour lines: real contour lines. Line features and point features: the area had them all.
With Avondale as an example, with several large university campuses there is a future for
orienteering even in southern Louisiana.
How did the camp go for the JROTC? See the St Amant NJROTC Facebook page report.
Check the photos. LCDR Bates believes the camp experience will give a great boost to
orienteering among the JROTC population in the area, “I believe the thing that mostly attracts
team members to orienteering is the experience of travel, sightseeing and camping which
normally comes with an out of state competition. We try to make the trips as fun as possible to
entice the students into wanting to participate,” wrote Bates.
He continued, “Once they actually learn how and develop some proficiency, the motivation to
participate changes from wanting to participate in a fun outing/activity to a passion for the sport and an exciting competitive drive.” I guess we have all experienced that. Orienteering grows on you, doesn’t it?
Are you interested in having an orienteering map made of your school, local park, or campground? Check out Orienteering USA’s Youth Mapping Program!
Host: Arctic Orienteering Club
Program:
