Tag: TeamUSA

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

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.

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

US Ski Orienteering Team Heads to Finland for World Championships

Chris Burnham, Cambridge Sports Union (CSU), and Nikolay Nachev, Cascade Orienteering Club (COC), will race in Kemi, Finland March 15-19, 2022 in the World Ski Orienteering Championships. The pair will be joined by Erik Fey, of Espoon Suunta, who will race in the European Youth Ski Orienteering Championships held concurrently with WSOC.

Kemi is in northern Finland, a long way for Chris and Nikolay, but not as far for Erik who lives with his family in Espoo, a suburb of Helsinki.

The WSOC races for Chris and Nikolay will be the Sprint March 15, Pursuit March 16 and Middle Friday March 18. Erik’s EYSOC races will be the Sprint on Tuesday March 15 and the Middle Wednesday March 16.

Chris lives in Stowe, VT and competed at the WSOC in Pitea, Sweden in 2019. He has extensive Nordic experience, placing an outstanding second place in last month’s Birkebeiner Classic 55 km marathon in Hayward, WI out of 1,600 competitors.

Nikolay, from Redmond, WA, also is a top athlete, on the winning team at the North American Rogaining Championships last year in Lake Tahoe, CA. He has previously raced in World Cup ski orienteering races and at SWOC in Tanndalen Sweden in 2011.


Erik, currently living in Finland and being 13 years old, is unknown to most US orienteers, but has raced extensively in Finland, one of the world’s most competitive ski orienteering countries.

To prepare for the races during winter school holidays this year Erik went to Sweden to take part in the open youth races at Swedish Ski-Orienteering Championships and finished 1st and 2nd in the boys 14 class.  Erik commented, “It was a good experience to race in Sweden two weeks ago and see that I could do well against people there as well as in Finland.  This gave me increased confidence for the upcoming European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships.” 

Erik was 4th in a close race in H15 in Finnish Medium Distance Ski-Orienteering Championships this year.  He did not race in the Finnish Long Distance Championships as one must be turning 15 in the calendar year to do so.  When asked about his goals for the upcoming European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships Erik continued, “Since I am only 13 and my category at European Youth Ski-Orienteering Championships is 17 and under my main goal for this year is to gain experience in international racing and not make any mistakes larger than 15 seconds.” 

Erik represents Espoon Suunta in ski-orienteering and orienteering and Espoon Hiihtoseura in cross-country skiing. Both clubs are among the top in Finland. Erik is coached by Carl Fey (his father and former US Ski-O Team member) and Tero Jantunen. When asked why he likes ski-orienteering Erik responded, “I love the technical difficulty and feeling of flying down hills on winding narrow trails. The steeper and bigger the better. Normal cross-country skiers don’t know what they are missing!”

Press release courtesy Ken Walker Sr.

Announcing the 2022 US National Team

The Selection Committee for the US National Orienteering Team is excited to announce the new merged team for 2022! We got a taste of what is to come at the WRE/NRE races in Georgia a few weeks ago. Along with upcoming domestic NREs this year, we also have The World Games, Sprint WOC, JWOC, WUOC, and World Cup competitions to look forward to.

I’d like to thank my fellow Selection Committee members, Eric Weyman and Boris Granovskiy, for their knowledge and interest in the process of determining the 2022 Team.

Peggy Dickison
US National Team Selection Committee Chair

Elite Squad

  • Ali Crocker (CROC)
  • Anthony Riley (DVOA)
  • Anton Salmenkyla (FIN)
  • Eric Bone (COC)
  • Greg Ahlswede (DVOA)
  • Joseph Barrett (QOC)
  • Ricardo Schaniel (SWI)
  • Thomas Laraia (MNOC/SCOT)
  • Tori Borish (RMOC)

Performance Squad

  • Alison Campbell (DVOA/SCOT)
  • Danny Riley (CAOC)
  • Diana Aleksieva (QOC)
  • Evalin Brautigam (WCOC/AUSTRALIA)
  • Jessica Colleran (COC)
  • Julia Doubson (BAOC)
  • Michael Laraia (MNOC/GER)
  • Peter Zakrevski (BGR)
  • Sydney Fisher (QOC)

Junior Squad

  • Aidan Minto (ICO)
  • Alex Merka (QOC)
  • Annika Mihata (COC)
  • Ava Suhocki (DVOA)
  • Ben Brady (COC)
  • Bridget Hall (NEOC)
  • Emilia Schmidt (QOC/FIN)
  • Keegan Harkavy (NEOC)
  • Kirsten Mayland (DVOA)
  • Lily Addicott (GAOC)
  • Victor Frolenko (DVOA)
  • Zariah Zosel (COC)

Alison Campbell joins US National Team ESC

At a team meeting held during last weekend’s events at the Georgia O-Fest, members of the 2021 US National Team voted to elect Alison Campbell to a seat on the US National Team Executive Steering Committee (ESC).

Alison has been a member of the US Team for over 10 years competing as part of the Development, Performance and Elite squads during her tenure on the team. Originally from the Philadelphia area (DVOA) she currently lives and competes in Glasgow, Scotland.

Alison is stepping into the ESC spot vacated by Giacomo Barbone who is stepping down having completed his term. OUSA would like to express our sincere thanks to Giacomo for his service to TeamUSA during his term on the ESC. Alison and Giacomo are pictured here at the World Cup Sprint Relay in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy last October.

Peggy Dickison (QOC) was re-elected to the ESC for another term and will continue in her role as acting Committee Chair. Peggy is pictured here handling the starts for the 2021 Team Trials held last May.

Rounding out the ESC for 2022 are:

  • Linda Kohn – Administrator
  • Greg Ahlswede
  • Eric Bone
  • Virginia DeBons
  • Jeff Saeger
  • Samantha Saeger

Stay tuned for an important announcement about the 2022 US National Team early next week. With the recent merger of the Senior & Junior Teams into a single entity we are excited about the future prospects for TeamUSA.

2022 Georgia O-Fest Recap

January 14-17, 2022

  • Official Event Website
  • Event Director: Charlie Bleau
    • UWG Course Setter: Fred Zendt
    • FDR Course Setter: Andi Berger
    • Registrar: Rick Shane
  • Friday: University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA
    • Sprint WRE
    • Sprint NRE
  • Saturday: FDR State Park, Pine Mountain, GA
    • Middle Distance WRE
    • Classic Distance NRE Day 1
    • Southeast Interscholastic Championships Day 1
  • Sunday: FDR State Park, Pine Mountain, GA
    • Long Distance WRE
    • Classic Distance NRE Day 2
    • Southeast Interscholastic Championships Day 2
  • Monday: FDR State Park, Pine Mountain, GA
    • Mal Harding Extreme-O

Friday Photos:

Friday Media:

Saturday Photos:

Saturday Media:

Sunday Photos:

Sunday Media:

Monday Media:

US Team Merger Announced

Orienteering USA is excited to announce the merger of the US National Team, aka TeamUSA, with the US Junior National Team to create a single, unified US National Team beginning in 2022. This merger will provide a more streamlined pathway for competitive junior athletes interested in advancing to the elite level.

Starting in 2022, the National Team will consist of three tiers: the Elite Squad, the Performance Squad, and the Junior Squad. The Elite Squad will consist of those athletes who consistently perform at a high level and are deemed most likely to be selected for WOC, WC or TWG teams. Performance Squad athletes also perform at a high level but may not yet be consistent picks for international team selection. The Junior Squad will encompass all Team members age 20 and under but are fully eligible to take part in all team activities and to compete for spots on the international event teams. Team selection for races such as JWOC and WUOC will of course be subject to the age restrictions of the individual competitions.

Applications for the 2022 US National Team were announced in December and athletes interested in applying for this year’s team should have submitted their applications. The entry period for 2022 is now closed. Stay tuned for an upcoming announcement about the revised Junior Development Program which will include exciting new options for youth orienteers beyond the competitive track.