The future stars of orienteering are ready to take centre stage as the Junior World Orienteering Championships 2026 get underway next week in Karlskrona, Sweden.
From 29 June to 4 July, 340 athletes from 40 nations around the world will compete for medals across five disciplines: Sprint, Sprint Relay, Middle Distance, Long Distance and Forest Relay.
Karlskrona offers a unique and demanding setting for this year’s championships. The Sprint distances on Monday and Tuesday take place in the heart of the host city, which is located on a peninsula in the archiepelago and offers fast and flat orienteering. From Wednesday onwards, it’s time for the forest distances, which are run in relatively fast terrain without many hills and with some rocky parts.
Defending champions
Several of last year’s champions return to defend their titles. Jonas Fenne Ingjerd (NOR) is defending sprint champion in the men’s class from last year’s championships in Italy. The women’s long distance champion Freja Hjerne (SWE) will get a chance to defend her title on home soil, while also Middle distance title holders Márton Csoboth (HUN) and Viktorie Škáchová (CZE) have entered the races.
Hannes Mogensen celebrates the Swedish relay victory in 2025. Photo: JWOC 2025
Czechia won the Sprint Relay last year, while Sweden and Switzerland took the relay title among men and women respectively.
Men’s Long distance champion Daniel Bolehovsky (CZE) and Women’s Sprint champion Seline Sannwald (SUI) are now seniors and cannot compete in Sweden.
Great TV coverage
Fans around the world will be able to follow the championships through IOF TV.
All five races will be produced as live broadcasts, featuring both English (Ivars Bacis and Holly Stodgell) and Swedish (Per Forsberg, Peter Andersson and Måns Sandgren) commentary. The coverage will bring viewers directly into the action with GPS tracking and live images from the forests and urban arenas of Karlskrona.
All times: CEST (UTC +2) – Photo: Eszter Kocsik / JWOC 2025
In addition to IOF TV, langrenn.com will broadcast all distances with Norwegian commentary, Czech TV will broadcast both relays, while Sport TV (HUN) will broadcast Tuesday’s sprint relay.
For schedules, start lists, live results and broadcast information, visit the JWOC 2026 event page or IOF Live.
JWOC 2026 Programme
CEST (UTC +2)
Monday, 29 June
Sprint
10:00 First start
10:30 – 13:30 IOF TV
Tuesday, 30 June
Sprint Relay
10:10 Mass start
10:00 – 11:30 IOF TV
Wednesday, 1 July
Long distance
9:00 First start
10:30 – 16:25 IOF TV
Friday, 3 July
Middle distance
9:00 First start
10:00 – 15:40 IOF TV
Saturday, 4 July
Relay
8:50 – 13:15 IOF TV
9:00 Men’s relay start
11:10 Women’s relay start