Orienteering fans around the world are having some busy weeks this summer trying to keep up with all the international championships going on.
As the WMOC in Italy and JWOC in Portugal are coming to an end this week, orienteering at The World Games in USA is just beginning – and so are the World Mountainbike Orienteering Championships in Sweden.
With three distances: Sprint, Middle and Sprint Relay on Friday, Saturday and Sunday respectively, orienteering will be part of the World Games for the sixth time.
All competitions can be followed through tv-stream, GPS-tracking and live results at IOF LIVE.
The World Games are held in Birmingham, Alabama covering 30 different sports – from Fistball over Muaythai to Tug of war. As with many other international events, the games were postponed from 2021 to 2022 due to the corona pandemic.
But finally, 79 orienteering athletes have entered and are ready to compete for the five sets of medals, which are to be handed out during the competitions.
Different challenges to come
The sprint on Friday takes place on a university campus ground in Birmingham with buildings and pathways and some meters to climb during the 3,3/3,8 kilometers for Women/Men.
Saturday will offer a completely different challenge for the middle distance: The Oak Mountain State Park southeast of Birmingham is continental forest terrain with good runnability and a fair number of hills to conquer.
Then, on Sunday it’s back to the fast shoes when the Sprint Relay is held in the Railroad Park downtown Birmingham. Expect super-fast running in the flat terrain with a mix of park and city orienteering.
Quite a few of the medalists from the World Games in Wroclaw, Poland five years ago will be in Birmingham to defend their places on the podium.
Matthias Kyburz (SUI) won the Middle distance in Poland and grabbed silver in the Sprint Relay and a bronze in the Sprint and has impressive six World Games medals in total. Fellow Swiss Elena Roos went home with two silver medals from Poland (Sprint and Sprint Relay), Yannick Michiels (BEL) got a silver in Sprint and Lina Strand (SWE) was third in the women’s class. Vojtech Kral (CZE) was third on Middle back then.
Program – Timezone CDT (UTC – 5):
Friday, July 15:
Sprint 9.00 – 11.00
Saturday, July 16
Middle 9.00 – 13.00
Sunday, July 17
Sprint Relay 9.00 – 10.00