Summer orienteering at O-ringen Uppsala 2022
The O-ringen is the “worlds biggest orienteering adventure” held annually in Sweden, each year in a different location, with around 15,000 competitors.
Janette was due to go in 2020 with family and friends. Following two years of COVID cancellations the event went ahead this year. Here is the report of the event from Janette.
We had a fantastic week of high-quality courses, in beautiful forests at a wonderfully organised event. There was foot and mountain-bike orienteering and with 125 classes something for everyone from young to old, elite athlete to the less able. All were cheered and supported. It is an astonishing feat of organisation with a temporary campsite for around 8,000, event centre, fleets of buses running every 5 minutes to transport people to and from events, 8 different starts and a finish arena with 8 different finish lanes to efficiently cope with the volume of runners.
Ultimately it is all about the orienteering and even with the huge number of competitors the forests don’t feel busy, the orienteering is technically challenging and the forests around Uppsala were beautiful to run through including a particularly fragrant area with lots of wild rosemary.
There are 5 days of competitive orienteering (2 days competition, rest day, 3 days competition). Your results from days 1-4 cumulate and there is a chasing start on day 5 where the current leader goes out first followed at intervals based on cumulative time difference by competitors within 90 minutes of the leader and everyone else is then started at 15 second intervals. It is fabulous fun and means that the first finished is the winner in the class.
On the rest day there were lots of activities available including orienteering courses in IKEA and an elite competitor’s sprint event in Uppsala city which was watched by crowds of thousands throughout the city and finished in the city football stadium.
It was a wonderful week of orienteering in a very supportive and welcoming atmosphere. Whilst, technically challenging, there were a range of course to suit all. I made many mistakes, but this did not take away from the joy of the participation.