The World Cup season will come to a breathtaking end in the Alps

The international orienteering season will come to a spectacular end this weekend, when Switzerland hosts the World Cup round 3 in Davos Klosters.

All three competitions: Relay, Middle distance and Long distance take place in altitudes between 1500 – 2000 meters above sea level, putting the world’s best orienteers physical, technical and mental skills to a test.

Saturday’s relays will take the runners the farthest up – to Madrisa between 1700 and 2000 meters and will offer lots of hills to climb and so will the individual races on Sunday and Monday, that happen closer to Davos.

Besides competing for the World Cup glory, the races will give the orienteering elite a taste of what’s to come at next year’s World Orienteering Championships at Flims Laax 50 kilometers more to the west.

Everything is at stake
The World Cup round in Davos Klosters features race 7, 8 and 9 in this year’s edition, that began in Borås, Sweden in May with three sprint races and was followed by three forest races at the European Orienteering Championships outside Rakvere, Estonia in august.

Three World Cup titles are at stake: Women’s, Men’s and the Team World Cup – and no athlete or nation can be sure to take the overall win, despite some large leads in the Women’s and Team competition.

Tove Alexandersson won the overall World Cup for the seventh time last year in Italy. Simona Aebersold took her second World Cup silver in a row and Hanna Lundberg (SWE) was third. Photo: IOF/William Hollowell

Tove Alexandersson (SWE) looks to be on her way to her eighth overall World Cup title in a row after another superior start to the season, where she won both individual races in Sweden in May and took a silver medal at the EOC Long distance in Estonia.

Alexandersson has scored 307 points and Simona Aebersold (SUI) is in second place with 217 points after her middle distance victory at EOC. The third place is occupied by another EOC champion, Venla Harju (FIN) who won the long distance and took bronze on middle distance in Estonia. She now has 194 World Cup points.

Kasper Fosser won the overall World Cup 2021 ahead of Matthias Kyburz (SUI) and Daniel Hubmann (SUI). Photo: IOF/William Hollowell

Can Fosser repeat his win
In the men’s World Cup, Kasper Fosser (NOR) must be the favorite to repeat his overall win from last season. Fosser won the individual sprint in Sweden in May, has two fourth place finishes and currently leads the standings with 222 points.

Sweden’s Martin Regborn climbed to second place after his long distance win at EOC and has 180 points. Fellow Swede Gustav Bergman is on Regborn’s tail – seven points behind on third place.

Five times World Cup winner Matthias Kyburz holds the fifth place in the standings but has withdrawn from the races in Davos due to a foot injury.

In the Team World Cup standings, Sweden has a huge lead after winning both the sprint relay in Borås and the women’s relay at EOC, where the Swedish men finished second. Sweden has 5480 points ahead of Norway (3866 points) and Switzerland (3606 points).

Go to World Cup standings

All three races can be followed closely on Web-TV at IOF LIVE with English commentary by Katherine Bett and Jonas Merz. Tickets for 6/15 EUR for one/all competitions. There will be live results and GPS-tracking as well.

Go to IOF LIVE to get your ticket now.

The competitions will be broadcasted in Sweden, Norway, Finland, France and Switzerland. Find the details here:

Program (local time is CEST – UTC +2):

Saturday, Oct. 1
Relay
Web-TV 11.50 – 16.00
First start 12.00/14.00 Men/Women

Sunday, Oct. 2
Middle distance
First start 9.20/9.50 Women/Men
Web-TV: 11.35 – 15.00

Monday, Oct. 3
Long distance
First start 9.15/9.40 Women/Men
Web-TV: 13.00 – 17.30

Go to organiser homepage