The IOF continues to follow closely the developments of the novel Corona (Covid-19) virus outbreak and its impact on IOF events and activities. Focus for the past few weeks has been on following up on the principles established by Council at their meeting April 3-4 and looking at both the remainder of year 2020 and the next few years. A number of new decisions have been made. Obviously the situation with travel and movement restrictions is still uncertain so some of these decisions can change once again in the future, but here is an updated picture of the current situation.
- The World MTB Orienteering Championships 2020 (WMTBOC) which were scheduled to be held in the Czech Republic had previously been cancelled. However, the organisers of the European MTB Orienteering Championships currently scheduled for October 2-7 in Loulé, Portugal have agreed to upgrade the event to World Championships level. The event will also include the Junior World MTB Orienteering Championships 2020 and the European Youth MTB Orienteering Championships 2020. This will mean some slight modifications to the program and further information will be communicated shortly.
- In further MTB Orienteering news the World MTB Orienteering Championships in 2021 (Finland) and 2022 (Sweden) will go ahead as planned. The 2020 organisers of the cancelled event in the Czech Republic have declined to organise in one of these years and have been offered the 2023 edition of WMTBOC. They will answer later in the summer if they intend on accepting the offer.
- The European Orienteering Championships 2020 (EOC) in Estonia which were cancelled will be moved to 2022, and the 2022 edition which was scheduled to be held in Hungary have been moved to 2024.
- The North American Orienteering Championships 2020, scheduled to be held in the USA in late July have been postponed until 2021. 3 different time periods are being considered in the summer of 2021 and will be communicated once the final dates are confirmed.
- The South American Orienteering Championships 2020, scheduled to be held in Brazil at the end of October have been cancelled and moved to October 28-30, 2022 with the same concept and organisers.
- The organisers of the World Masters Games 2021, which includes the World Masters Orienteering Championships 2021 (WMOC), in Kansai, Japan, have confirmed that the event will go on as planned from May 22-29, 2021. This means that the WMOC 2022 scheduled for Italy will go ahead as planned, and the 2023 edition will be organised in Slovakia, with the same organisers and concept of the cancelled WMOC 2020 event. The IOF had also received 3 bids for the WMOC 2023. These will now be evaluated for the 2024 edition of the WMOC.
- The World Games 2021 (TWG) scheduled to be held in Birmingham, Alabama, USA have been moved to July 7 – 17, 2022 due to the move of the Tokyo Olympic Games from 2020 to 2021. The orienteering competitions will most likely be held July 15 – 17. As this is in conflict with the currently scheduled dates for the World Orienteering Championships 2022 (WOC) in Edinburgh, Scotland planning is going on to remove this conflict. New WOC dates will be published as soon as known.
- The remainder of the 2020 events calendar is currently unchanged. The IOF is attempting to keep IOF Eventor updated with all changes as they happen.
Other IOF activities are also affected by the Covid-19 virus outbreak.
- It was announced April 15 that the Swedish O-Ringen Uppsala 2020 has been cancelled and postponed until 2021. This means that the IOF supported O-Ringen Academy and the the IOF Global Development Conference, which were scheduled to be held in connection with O-Ringen 2020 are also cancelled. Most likely the Global Development Conference will be re-scheduled to be held in connection with O-Ringen in 2021.
- Due to the postponement of the World Orienteering Championships 2020 (WOC) to October the deadline to apply for participation in the WOC Clinic 2020 has also been extended until June 30, 2020. More information about the Clinic and the application form can be found here