The 2024 World Orienteering Champs are in Edinburgh

In July 2024 (very probably 12th-16th) the World Championship Orienteering Races in Individual Sprint, Sprint Relay, and Knockout Sprint will be decided. They're in Edinburgh. Although that is a long way away for many people it is not so far for prospective competitors, so it may be fun to look at possible stepping stones for GB athletes. They will surely have done this already.

Let's name the recent World Cup Races in Czechia as the first stone. There there were both forest and sprint races; the sprints being the first at this level since last year's World Champs, whilst the forest races were the last ones at that level until after Edinburgh.

Grace Molloy, photo: Jiri Cech, Český svaz orientačních sportů

Rachel Brown finishes in the World Cup Sprint Relay in Česká Lípa, photo: Rob Lines

Ralph Street won the World Cup Sprint Race in Česká Lípa, photo: Rob Lines

Česká Lípa is the location for World Cup Round 2

Close to where the 2021 World Champs races were, and like then with both sprint and forest races on the programme, Česká Lípa in Czechia hosts World Cup Round 2. It's the third of the four big international competitions in the year. World Cup Round 1 (Norway) and the World Champs (Switzerland) have passed and the European Champs in Sprint (Italy) are ahead in early October.

Chris Smithard, World Cup Relay, April 2023

The final races of The World Cup Round in Østfold, Norway were forest relays. On Sunday April 30th the men started at 1pm, the women at 3pm. It was a grand occasion as the sun shone, and the arena was laid out to bring the athletes close to the crowd, most of whom had run their own races (finishing in the arena) in the morning. The changeover and an arena passage were right next to the crowds, and with quarantine only closing 15 minutes before first start many of the national team athletes mingled with the crowd in the arena. The relays were close, exciting races, with both having several teams close together throughout, and there was a particularly spectacular sprint finish in the men's race.

Chloe Potter on the start line

The second race of the 2023 World Cup was a middle distance. It was expected that the men's race could be won by any of a dozen runners and the women's race would be won by Tove Alexandersson, the current World Cup champion. Tove won the long race on Thursday and has been the outstanding athlete in this type of race for some years. Compared to those expectations both results were a surprise.

Tove Alexandersson only came second as her compatriot Sara Hagstrom ended 10 seconds ahead in the 35 minute race. It was very exciting. Tove was 5 seconds quicker at the penultimate control, less than a minute from the finish. At the same time Sara Hagstrom was being interviewed as the big screen showed drone and fixed camera footage of Tove coming through the last control and dashing over the line, as the seconds ticked down.

A TV interview at the first race of the 2023 World Cup in Norway

The first race of the 2023 World Cup was a long (target winning times: 82 minutes women, 90 minutes men.) It was expected that Scandinavian runners would be the strongest in the Nordic terrain and so it proved.

In the women's race Tove Alexandersson (82:07) and Sara Hagstrom (83:02) of Sweden were one-two, with Marie Olaussen of Norway taking third place. Full Results.

In the men's race Kasper Fosser (88:06) of Norway finished 3 seconds and 9 seconds respectively ahead of the Swedes Emil Svensk and Martin Regborn. It was very, very close. Full Results

Official Results

High Dam mapclip, from Routegadget

The JK Weekend is upon us, the biggest of major events for all UK orienteers. This year it's again in some of the most delightfully scenic and challenging terrain in the country, and a great weekend is in prospect. The elite race fields are both encouragingly large and look very strong. Four successive days of top competition is very tiring so it is not unusual to see several of the top runners choosing not to run (or not to fully run) the long race on the third day, especially if they have been injured during the winter.

As in 2015 the weekend is hosted by the North-West Association at Lancaster University (Sprint) and in the southern Lake District. On Friday (7th) it's the sprint, on Saturday the middle at High Dam, and on Sunday the long distance at Bigland. All are World Ranking Events (WRE). The weekend rounds off with relays at Dale Park on Easter Monday.

Cold Ash Mapclip, from Routegadget

The British Long Champs are next Saturday 25th March, in rolling mixed woodland of Southern England at Cold Ash in Berkshire, as used for the JK2019 Long Race.

There's a good entry and the men's race in particular looks very competitive. A few though are saving their powder for two weeks later in the rockier terrain of the Lake District, when it's GB selection races.

Courses at the British are much the same length as in 2019: W21E has 12.2km, 285m climb, compared to 12.1km + 340m, M21E has 17.8km + 480m compared to 17.8km + 500m. This could be the last British with such a short winning time on the women's, and such a long winning time on the men's.

photo:Jane Courtier, from the British Champs website

While we're waiting, let's mention the IOF World Federation League Table and pose a few questions (for your personal amusement, no prizes.) This decides how many runners a country can enter in an individual World Cup Race. There are separate tables for men and women, combining forest and sprint.

If you've kept interest this far you can probably say what are the top four countries in the tables. But how about a guess for their order (it has changed in the last year)? And how about who's fifth, and where GB stands in each table?

Capri, the World Champs 2023 Mascot, on stage at the World Champs 2022

The sprint racing that has filled the international calendar so far this year is done. This week it's the second round of the 2022 World Cup, the European Championships. All races are in tough forest in Estonia: long (classic), middle and relay races.

Fourteen athletes are in the British Team, seven women and seven men. It's a larger and also much less experienced team than went to the (Sprint) World Championships in Denmark in June.

Congratulations to Rachel Brown, Chloe Potter, Peter Molloy and Joe Woodley who make World Cup debuts. Rachel and Peter are W/M20.

The GB team who were "fourth nation" at World Cup Round 1, photo:Rob Lines

There are eight athletes, four men and four women, running for GB at this year's World Championships in Denmark. The races are the sprint disciplines: individual sprint, knockout sprint and sprint relay..

There are three race days.

• Sunday 26th June - Sprint Relay, in Kolding (where the Event Centre is)
• Tuesday 28th June - Knockout Sprint, in Fredericia
• Thursday 30th June - Individual Sprint, in Vejle

All the GB athletes raced in World Cup Round 1 in Sweden last month, and the photos below are from that competition. Thanks to Rob Lines for most of them. Rob's gallery of orienteering photographs is on Flickr.

Nathan Lawson, Borås Stadtspark, photo: Rob Lines

The GB first team of Charlotte Ward, Jonny Crickmore, Nathan Lawson and Megan Carter-Davies, were sixth, fourth nation, in the Sprint Relay in the centre of Borås on Sunday 29th May.

The race was won by Sweden's second team. The favourites, Sweden-1, made noticeable mistakes on leg3 and leg4, causing them to finish third. Switzerland-1 was second. Norway-1 were fourth, so third nation. Switzerland-2 were fifth.

Official Results - Orienteering World Cup Sprint Relay May 2022. There are two lists: one for just the leading teams for each country and one for all teams, including up to four teams per country, plus the "mixed" teams.

The GB second team of Alice Leake, Chris Smithard, Will Gardner and Grace Molloy were twenty-second of the fifty-seven teams that started, just behind Czech-1.

Megan Carter-Davies leads a quarter-final

Megan Carter-Davies won the silver medal in the World Cup Knockout Sprint in Borås, Sweden.

The Knockout Sprint races took place on Saturday 28th May. They comprised a qualification early in the morning, and then quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals in the afternoon.

Ralph Street got through to the men's final coming 7th (the final had an extra runner after a protest). Charlotte Ward, Cecilie Andersen and Jonny Crickmore qualified for the knockout stages and were eliminated in the quarter-finals.

Official Results - Orienteering World Cup Knockout Sprint May 2022.

The excellent photos here are the work of Rob Lines. You can find Rob's oeuvre of orienteering photographs on Flickr.

Charlotte Ward, interviewed after her terrific run

A GB team of 12 athletes, six men and six women, is in Borås, Sweden for three races forming World Cup Round 1. The races are the sprint disciplines: individual sprint, knockout sprint and sprint relay.

The individual sprint was on Thursday 26th May, and Kris Jones and Charlotte Ward both finished with a "top 10" result.

Official Results - Orienteering World Cup Individual Sprint May 2022.

Thanks to Rob Lines for the excellent photos.

GB has named a team of 13 athletes, seven men and six women, for 2022 World Cup Round 1 in Borås, Sweden at the end of May. The races are the sprint disciplines: individual sprint, knockout sprint and sprint relay.

Broadly, selection was made on two domestic sprint competitions earlier this year, Sprint Scotland and the JK Sprint, and last year's international races in Switzerland (European Champs), the Czech Republic (World Champs) and Italy (a sprint relay).

The team will be supported by Lasse Grøn, Jo Stevenson, Murray Strain, and Emil Wingstedt. All have recent experience with the team.

British Orienteering Announcement - Team for World Cup Round 1.

Part of the terrain for this year's JK Middle Race (mapper squad member Ben Mitchell)

Internationally, in 2020 almost none of the races that On The Red Line tend to follow took place, but in 2021 they almost all did.

Domestically, the British NIghts took place in early 2020, and then there weren't big events until the second half of 2021.

The outlook for 2022 is however promising, with full programmes internationally and domestically

the start of the men's middle in the Cansiglio forest, October 2021

The Final Round of the 2021 World Cup took place at Cansiglio–Cortina d'Ampezzo in north-east Italy from 30th September to 3rd October.

The long race on Thursday 30th September and the middle on Saturday 2nd October were in runnable beech forest on high Karst terrain. These decided the individual World Cup with Kasper Fosser and Tove Alexandersson both winning both days and becoming the World Cup Winners 2021.

There was a thrilling sprint relay in Cortina d'Ampezzo on Sunday 3rd, with four nations including GB starting their last leg runners at the front within a few seconds of each other. It was like a double length knockout sprint. At the end Andrine Benjaminsen stormed in to win for Norway, the first time an international sprint relay was not won by either Sweden or Switzerland. GB were fourth nation. Sweden won the team World Cup.

a training area, the Archeton - Valmanera map used for Italian Middle Champs March 2021

The Final Round of the 2021 World Cup takes place at Cansiglio–Cortina d'Ampezzo in north-east Italy from 30th September to 3rd October.

There's a long race on Thursday 30th September, a middle on Saturday 2nd October (same day as the British Long Champs*) and a sprint relay on Sunday 3rd.

*if people can get to Devon despite the petrol supply problems in England

It's the region for the 2026 Winter Olympics, and it should provide a typically scenic finale to the year. The forest races are in beech forest, "Karst terrain with lots of point details; occasionally stony." The sprint relay is "Typical mountain village with detailed historical centre and houses with private and public ownership: 80% asphalt surface, 20% grass and open field."

The long will run for most of the day to a prize-giving at 4:30pm UK-time. There's no TV production but results, arena sound and picture, and GPS from 11am.

The middle and sprint relay do have Internet TV (10 Euros for both) with commentary from Katherine Bett and Jonas Merz. On Saturday it's 11:30-3:30, on Sunday 12:30-1:55.

A full British Team of 12 athletes is entered.

Women's Relay Presentation, from the IOF Internet TV Broadcast

The World Cup Round 2 at Idre Fjäll in Sweden did a good job of testing the best orienteers and in beautiful wilderness forest. There was a long race on Thursday 12th, a middle on Saturday 14th, and Sunday was forest relays. Running times were often a bit longer than expected.

There were challenges throughout the races, mental, technical and physical. In particular, some of the hardest navigation problems came later in courses, after big climbs or stretches of featureless forest slope, and often where visibillity decreased as spruce supplanted pine. We saw runners get close to controls and not see the kite, so assume that many were set low. Any faster runners who managed an error-free run did well, and amidst many smaller errors there were some big, spectacular and unexpected mistakes from very good orienteers. The surprises made for very exciting spectating on the Internet TV, and unexpected names on the podiums of the middle and relays.

Results of World Cup Round 2 at IOF Eventor.

Britain sent a full team of 14 athletes including six World Cup debutants. Alastair Thomas, Nathan Lawson and Grace Molloy made their senior debuts at the World Champs. It was first time in the senior team for Joshua Dudley, Fiona Bunn and Laura King

The World Cup Round 2 at Idre Fjäll in Sweden has races on Thursday 12th (long), Saturday 14th (middle) and Sunday 15th August (forest relay.) For all races the terrain is mainly high runnability and high visibility pine forest at 600m-900m, with plenty of contours and marsh, and little else.

Britain is sending a full team of 14 athletes. Six men and six women can run each individual race, and there will be two GB teams in each relay.

All races have internet TV coverage with English commentary.

from the Idre Fjäll Event Bulletin-3

After a really good World Champs in Czechia in July 2021, what's next for the internationals programme, COVID permitting?

World Champs Summary from a British point-of-view.

There are two more World Cup rounds scheduled in 2021:

• World Cup Round 2 is in Idre Fjäll, Sweden, 12-15 August, 3 x forest races.
• World Cup Round 3 is in Cansiglio, Italy, 30 Sept - 3rd Oct, 2 x forest races and a sprint relay.

And on 23-24 October, Billund, Denmark, hosts individual and knockout sprints as part of WOC2022 buildup.

The domestic sprint weekend is 21st-22nd August (same as the re-scheduled Arctic Circle Jukola)

• British Sprint Champs (22nd August)
• British Sprint Relay Champs (21st August)

Virtual Control Site, 2020

When can it all get back to how it was before? Who knows, maybe it can't, so here's a summary of the the status of the British squad, and international and big domestic competitions.

Can we be optimistic? We said that the 2020 season ended not soon after it started, which was true in a general sense as little of the season happened as originally planned. In gloomy moments we wonder if this year the season will start before it ends? Perhaps cautious optimism is appropriate. Maybe things won't be quite as they were before but they will still be good, later in the year.

Fiona Bunn is one of five newcomers to the GB Senior Squad. Credit: JWOC2019 Denmark.

The GB 2020 Senior Squad was announced at the end of January, news somewhat buried by the departure of the UK from the European Union on the same day.

On The Red Line We add our congratulations to the newcomers, and we thank those leaving for their contribution in previous years.

There are 24 athletes. 18 are based in the UK and six in Scandinavia. 15 of them have run at a World Championships. Coincidentally, 24 was also the size of the initial squads announced for 2018 and 2019.

It is an achievement to be invited to join. It brings cachet. It doesn't of itself bring any financial benefit though; there is no official squad training, and it is not referenced in the selection policy. Membership may help provide evidence on the policy's additional criteria, such as commitment to a positive team environment, but it is not the only way to do that. The GB international teams can and often do select non-squad athletes. Graham Gristwood ran the long at last year's World Championships.

New to the squad this year are Adam Potter (Bristol O.K.), Ben Mitchell (Swansea Bay O.C.), Cecilie Andersen (Bristol O.K.) and Sarah Jones (Edinburgh Southern O.C.), all relatively young runners who ran in the later rounds of last year's World Cup. Another newcomer is first year senior Fiona Bunn (Thames Valley O.C.), who won two medals at last year's Junior World Championships (JWOC).

Picture: Last year's GB World Cup Team

COVID-19 As you can imagine this was written before the introduction of the extensive social distancing measures introduced as a response to the spread of the virus causing COVID-19. Many of the events described will be cancelled.

In 2020 it is the first Sprint Orienteering World Championships, with Sprint Relay, Individual Sprint and the new Knockout Sprint. Denmark host, from 6th - 11th July, with the racing in Kolding, Fredericia and Vejle.

The European Championships are hosted by Estonia centred on Rakvere, and are the week of 6th - 23rd August. They include Middle, Long and Forest Relay.

The World Champs are not included in this year's World Cup, the European Champs are (as Round 2). There are two other rounds: Switzerland 20th - 24th May is Round 1, and Italy 1st - 6th October is the World Cup Final.

The Junior World Champs are in Turkey from 28th June - 5th July.

All are accompanied by open races, providing an opportunity for spectating orienteers to take a full-on experience of running and following the international racing.

The Great Britain Sprint Relay Team for World Cup Round 1

Preview

The race starts at 17:57 Finnish Time (2 hours ahead of UK) on Tuesday 11th June. It can be watched on the internet for 6euro.

Live services.

Sasha Chepelin at the arena passage

Peter Bray, shortly after the race

Nuuksio National Park, photo courtesy of the World Cup Round 1 organisation

Image: Map Extract, World Cup Final Middle Race - Embargoed Area

World Cup Round 3 was three days of international racing in Østfold, Norway on 31st August and the 1st and 2nd September. Normal World Cup rules applied with the strong countries having eight runners per race rather than the limit of three that is used at the World Champs, and fields of more than a hundred. It was a tough programme of four races in three days.

This was pre-WOC 2019, being where the 2019 World Championships are,and in similar terrain. Compared to rounds 1 (the European Champs, held in Switzerland) and 2 (the World Champs, held in Latvia) the Swedes did better and the Swiss less well. Tove Alexandersson of Sweden won on all three days, establishing a formidable lead in the 2018 World Cup women's competition. In the men's the Swiss Matthias Kyburz and Daniel Hubmann lead, but Olav Lundanes of Norway is close and three others still in range.

World Cup Table.

Round 3 of the 2018 World Cup takes place in Østfold, Norway on 31st August and the 1st and 2nd September. It is "pre-WOC" as the 2019 World Orienteering Championships are in the same south-eastern part of Norway. 2019 is a year for a forest championships.

Description of how to follow the races live

The round includes a shortened long distance race, a prologue + pursuit, and a relay.

More detail in World Cup Round 3, Bulletin-3.