Tag: orienteering

2022 WOC Team Announced

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:

  • Men
    • Joe Barrett – QOC
    • Sergei Ryzhkov – DVOA
    • Ricardo Schaniel – Bussola OK
    • Eric Bone – COC (alternate)
  • Women
    • Tori Borish – RMOC
    • Evalin Brautigam – WCOC
    • Alison Campbell – DVOA
    • Oriana Riley – DVOA (alternate)

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.

Joe Barrett
QOC
Sergei Ryzhkov
DVOA
Ricardo Schaniel
Bussola OK
Tori Borish
RMOC
Evalin Brautigam
WCOC
Alison Campbell
DVOA
Eric Bone (alt)
COC
Oriana Riley (alt)
DVOA

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!

2022 JWOC Team Announced

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.

  • Women:
  • Alexis Merka
  • Anna Campbell
  • Bridget Hall
  • Kirsten Mayland
  • Lily Addicott
  • Zoe Sibthorp
  • Annika Mihata (1st alternate)
  • Oriana Riley (2nd alternate)
  • Men:
  • Benjamin Brady
  • Holden Sopoti
  • Keegan Harkavy
  • Victor Frolenko

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!

Alexis Merka
(QOC)
Anna Campbell
(NEOC)
Bridget Hall
(NEOC)
Kirsten Mayland
(DVOA)
Lily Addicott
(GAOC)
Zoe Sibthorp
(COC)
Annika Mihata (1st alt) (COC)
Oriana Riley (2nd alt)
(DVOA)
Ben Brady
(COC)
Holden Sopoti
(USMAOC)
Keegan Harkavy
(NEOC)
Victor Frolenko
(DVOA)

National Team adds two new members

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!!

42nd Annual West Point NRE Recap

April 23-24, 2022

Saturday AM: Middle at Black Rock Forest

Saturday PM: Sprint at Trophy Point

Sunday: Long Distance at Black Rock Forest

OUSA Seeks Volunteers for Key Program Roles

Youth Mapping Program Outreach Coordinator

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:

  • Identifying organizations with missions and terrain that align with YMP opportunities. In particular, organizations with terrain that supports mapping from a distance (i.e. open areas rather than dense forests), or that is near a YMP mapper’s location. Don’t worry – no mapping expertise is necessary.
  • Publicizing opportunities and contacting organizations to get them excited about trying orienteering
  • Connecting them with other Orienteering USA (OUSA) assets (list of local clubs, education website, etc)
  • Following up with organizations who have received YMP created maps, in order to generate stories of their map use, to be used by the National Communications Manager to further publicize and grow the program

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.

OUSA Rankings Coordinator

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.

2022 OUSA Junior Nationals Recap

April 1-3, 2022

  • Host: Orienteering Cincinnati
  • Event Website
  • Location: East Fork State Park, Batavia, OH
  • Event Director: Mike Minium
    • Registrar: Guy Olsen
    • OUSA Course Consultant: Peter Goodwin
    • Course Setters:
      • Friday: Shin Shimizu
      • Saturday: Matthew Robbins
      • Sunday: Mike Minium

Friday: Middle at Slabcamp Run

Saturday: Classic Day 1 at Afton-Elklick

Sunday: Classic Day 2 at Indian Mounds

Miscellaneous

TeamUSA: WOC Team Trials update

The National Team ESC has announced that races at the 42nd West Point National Ranking Event weekend will serve as team trials to select a team to compete at the World Orienteering Championships to be held June 26-30 in Denmark.

This year’s WOC will be a ‘sprint-WOC’ featuring a Sprint Relay, Knockout Sprint and Individual Sprint events. As such, the Saturday afternoon sprint (4/23) at Trophy Point will be one of two trials races for team hopefuls. An additional Friday sprint (4/22) is scheduled (pending permitting) to be held at Fort Tryon Park in New York City to serve as the second trials race.

Additional information regarding the Friday sprint will be forthcoming as details are confirmed. At this time only Red & Blue courses will be offered and may be open to non-trialers pending decision of the organizers. Of course the full slate of sprint courses on offer as part of the S/M/L event at West Point are open to all.

DVOA Big Woods Recap

March 19-20, 2022

  • Event Website
  • Event Director: Mark Frank
    • Registrar: Janet Tryson
    • OUSA Course Consultant: Eric Weyman
    • French Creek North Course Setter: Glen Tryson
    • Coventry Woods Course Setter: Petr Hartman
  • Day 1: French Creek North
  • Day 2: Coventry Woods

Saturday Photos

Saturday Media

Sunday Photos

Sunday Media

World Ski-O Championships: Day 2 – Pursuit

US Ski-Orienteers Performances Continue to Improve on the 2nd Day of the World Ski-Orienteering Championships and European Youth Championships.

The 2022 World Ski-Orienteering Championships and European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships are taking place in the North of Finland in Kemi this week. The men’s race on Wednesday, March 16th, 2022 was a long pursuit race. In a pursuit race racers start the amount of time they were behind the leader in the previous race which was a sprint. The men’s race was noteworthy for starting with skiers skiing up a downhill area, thus pulses were very high from the very first seconds of the race. The race had three loops.

The men’s race was won by Jörgen Backlid of Norway in 69:02 (his time for day 2 was 57:08) who had been in the lead of the sprint race until he made a small mistake of about 15 seconds near the end and ended up in 4th place 7 seconds behind the winner. Tuomas Kotro of Finland was second and Nicola Mueller of Switzerland had an impressive race ending third. Chris Burnham of Stowe, VT, who is coming off of an impressive 2nd place finish in the American Brikebeiner classic ski marathon which had over 1600 participants, had a solid race. Chris was 47th in the long pursuit race and the top American man with a day 2 time of 83:09. Chris commented, “I was happy that the race was longer today than yesterday as I enjoy and do better at longer races. Some of the mazes of small trails were really dense and thus quite difficult.”

American Nikolay Nachev from Seattle, WA was 52nd with a day 2 time of 102:15. The mazes also stood out to Nikolai who commented, “The gentle slope with no wide tracks was like the Bermuda Triangle. You go in there and you don’t know whether you are going to get out.” The men’s race was noteworthy for starting at the bottom of a downhill ski slope which the athletes had to ski up making a great spectacle for spectators. Many thought this was a somewhat harsh to start a race like this, but Chris and Nikolai who both like tough races were excited by this intensive start to the race. One can watch the races on web-TV at: https://orienteering.sport/event/world-ski-orienteering-championship/pursuit/

The European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships had a middle distance race today. The race was won by Pyry Riissanen from Finland in 18:01. American Erik Fey had an impressive race, especially given that he is 13 years old and racing in the 17 and under class, ending 18th in a time of 23:24. These European Championship races are Erik’s first time racing internationally for the US. Erik was excited to be solidly competitive and in front of some skiers from top nations like Sweden. Erik commented, “It has been a great experience to race at the European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships. I love the feeling of flying along the narrow trails with quick turns. I am very pleased with my race today, but I did have one 15 second mistake early in the race. Being here really motivates me to train harder for future years. I am really looking forward to racing in these races in a few years when I am 17.”

Tomorrow will be a rest day and then the races continue with a middle distance race for World Championships and a long distance race for the European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships on Friday. However, being only 13 Erik has opted not to race in the long race this year. He says he looks forward to hopefully trying that next year….

Press Release courtesy Carl Fey