National Team applications now open!

Each year, the National Team represents the United States at international orienteering events around the world. From World Cup races to the World Orienteering Championships and Junior World Orienteering Championships, our athletes compete at the highest level and showcase the best of Team USA.

Athletes selected for the National Team are grouped into three squads: Elite, Performance, and Junior. Additional athletes may also qualify mid-season through team trials or a petition process to compete in specific international championships.

Apply Now: National Team application / Selection Criteria

The National Team application deadline is January 12, 2025—don’t miss this chance to compete on the world stage and represent TeamUSA!

As previously announced, the JWOC and WOC Team Trials will take place at the BAOC event Feb 28-Mar 2. For WOC and JWOC selection criteria and more information about the National Team, please visit the National Team page.

OUSA Events Calendars

Stay up to date with Orienteering USA events, forums, and deadlines by subscribing to the OUSA Events Calendar!

  • Google Calendar: Add to Google Calendar
    Clicking this link will open the OUSA Events Calendar in Google Calendar. If you’re logged in to your Google account, you can easily add it by selecting “Add” to keep track of events directly in your Google Calendar.
  • iCal Link: Download iCal File
    The iCal link allows you to add the OUSA Events Calendar to other calendar applications, such as Apple Calendar or Outlook. Simply download the iCal file and import it into your preferred calendar app.

Don’t miss out on upcoming O-Forums, national ranking events, online course review sessions, and more!

OUSA Club Recharters

It’s almost time for Clubs and Supporting Members to recharter with Orienteering USA!

OUSA Clubs (regular and associate) and Supporting Members can start the recharter process in January 2025. More information to come in January.

December OUSA Forum: Getting started with mapping!

Are you interested in mapping? Already have some mapping experience and want to learn more?

Join us December 19th at 8:30 ET for the December O Forum on Mapping, presented by Jeff Teutsch of Navigation Sports! Jeff has over 10 years of experience in making orienteering maps, from basemap creation to the final product. His work includes everything from schoolyards to the giant wilderness area used in the North American Championships this summer. Through his orienteering venture Navigation Sports, Jeff has taught mapping skills to a multitude of other aspiring mappers.

This session is aimed towards those who want to get started with mapping or have just started their journey, but even the most experienced mappers will learn something new!

Learn from Jeff on December 19th at 8:30 ET on Google Meet.

Add to your Google Calendar.

YMP December Map of the Month

The Youth Mapping Program December Map of the Month feature is Sprague Woods School Forest in Caledonia, MN. This city park was recently dedicated as a school forest and remains open to the public, but school groups are especially encouraged to use the space. Teacher Robbie Sobczak, who provided eye-on-the-ground support for this map, plans to use the map to introduce his 9th-grade Geography class to the sport of orienteering.

Are you interested in flexing your cartography skills and joining the growing team of YMP mappers?  Sign up here.  Note: Mappers for the YMP are remote cartographers with field checking performed by persons from the recipient organization collaborating with you remotely, with support from the core YMP consultant.

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.

November OUSA Forum: Sprints!

Please join us this Tuesday, November 26th, for a presentation and discussion about sprints orienteering. Senior team member Alison Campbell shares her views on how sprints differ in the USA to Europe, how to train for sprint races, and more! After the presentation there will be time for questions and discussion.

This presentation will be great for competitive athletes, course designers, and anyone interested in learning more about this fast and furious orienteering format!

This session is now available on YouTube.

2024 OUSA Nationals Event Recap

October 11-13, 2024

  • Host: Delaware Valley Orienteering Club (DVOA)
  • Venues:
    • Nay Aug Park, Scranton, PA
    • Merli-Sarnoski County Park, PA
  • Event Director: Sandy Fillebrown
    • IOF Event Advisor (for middle and long WREs): Tac Sugiyama
    • Sprint course design: Karl Ahlswede
    • Middle course design: Greg Ahlswede
    • Long course design: Glen Tryson

Event website

Results

Media

US Ski-Orienteering Team Selected

The US Ski-Orienteering Team’s Executive Steering Committee is pleased to announce that it has selected the team for the 2025 World Cup based on past results and potential. This is a rebuilding year for the US Ski-O Team so only two people have been selected to the senior team. This year the World Cup races will take place in Norway, Germany, and Finland.  The US Senior team has opted not to race in the races in Finland this year.  

Chris Burnham

Chris Burnham of Stowe, VT was named to the team. Chris comes from a strong skiing background including an impressive 2nd place finish in the American Brikebeiner classic ski marathon in 2022. He is back to international ski-orienteering after taking a two-year break to focus on setting back-country distance skiing records like last year setting the record for the fastest time skiing the largely ungroomed 300km Catamount Trail in Vermont in 6 days, 10 hours, and 31 minutes. When not skiing, Chris is an underwater robot programmer. 

Adrian Owens

Chris will be joined on the team by veteran ski-orienteer Adrian Owens of Craftsbury, VT who also orienteers for Green Mountain Orienteering Club. Adrian was the US’s top performer on the US senior team last year at World Championships. Adrian hopes to use his many years of ski-orienteering experience to ensure that he has clean races. Adrian, who is an outdoor enthusiast and has great concern for the environment even living in an environmentally-friendly home, excels at producing consistent stable race results even in difficult conditions and having good endurance.  

For additional information contact: Carl Fey, US Ski-O Team Coach at: carlffey@nullgmail.com 

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.