Badenoch & Strathspey Orienteering Club

Summer orienteering 2022

WOC Tour Nikki and Lynne
WOC Tour Nikki and Lynne
Credit: Jon Cross
Published: Tue 5 Jul 2022

Many people who orienteer plan a summer break around an orienteering event. In 2022, a few BASOC folks are competing in a variety of events around the UK and Europe.

WOC Tour, Denmark 2022

The first World Orienteering Championships (WOC) in Sprint orienteering was held in Denmark at the end of June 2022. Up until 2022, WOC has had forest races and sprint races all rolled into the one event. This is now split so 2023 will be forest only races (in Switzerland) while 2024 WOC sprint is in Edinburgh!

Lynne & Paul planned a long holiday in Denmark, staying in Jutland and exploring areas by (gravel) bike and taking in the ‘public’ WOC Tour races. The gravel biking has been really good, and we still have another couple of weeks of this.

WOC Tour was 6 races, 3 in the forest and 3 sprint in the towns where the WOC athletes had raced. The forest races were a bit mixed – some really yuck forest undergrowth in places (head high thistles, waist high nettles are not at all pleasant); the third forest was just lovely, clean forest floor, good visibility and the map seemed to match the ground! That was a relief.
The 3 sprint races were interesting and technical. The first one in Kolding was around the older part of the town while the races in Fredericia and Vejle took in modern blocks of houses with courtyards so finding the way in and out was part of the challenge!
Results, well one mispunch (when did I last do that) and a couple of forest races where it felt I was being timed by calendar . . .

We were staying in Vejle and so late afternoon on Thursday 30th June we cycled down to around the WOC arena area; that was crowded so we found a great place just outside at the second last control where we could see all the athletes coming in towards the finish. It was a balmy sunny evening so spectating was very pleasant. It was great to see Megan Carter-Davies sprinting towards her Gold medal!
It is worthwhile having a look at the maps / courses for the WOC Individual Sprint; sitting at my computer I take as long to find the best route as the athletes took to run the courses! GPS tracking was not great due to the high buildings creating a canyon-like area.
I have a huge respect for the pace these athletes navigate at; it is really full on orienteering decision-making where mistakes of a few seconds are punished by rapidly dropping places. Sprint for the legs and mind. Maybe BASOC will set up some training sessions for sprint so you canb all get to sample it?

Our holiday continues with exploring the gravel tracks of Denmark along with some running as Coast & Islands week of orienteering comes up on Monday 25th July!