The 2025 European Championships were in Belgium at the end of August. It was the turn of the three sprint disciplines, the first time at World Cup Level since the World Championships in Edinburgh 13 months ago. The cities of Hasselt, Geel and Lier hosted, and all races were accessible by train. There were accompanying spectator races called the "EOC Tour". The build up and lead-in events had been successful and it all went very well.

At the end the team of France were exuberant with their best ever results. The final day was the individual sprint, the show taking over the Market Square in Lier. Mathias Barros Vallet won, complementing Cecile Calandry's win in the knockout sprint two days earlier. Pia Young Vik of Norway took the women's sprint, and both Mathias and Pia were first time winners at this level. In fact for both, although they had strong results from lower level races and had shown well in knockout sprint (Pia won silver behind Cecile), it was their first finish in the top-10 of a World Cup individual sprint race, and of course it meant gold medals and a national anthem playing for them.

The 2025 World Championships were in Finland, at Kuopio in the middle of the country. It was a forest only World Champs. The build up and lead in events had been successful and it all went very well.

By the end the big nations had taken all of the medals: Sweden 7, Norway 6, Switzerland 4, and the home country Finland won bronze in the last race .

Grace Molloy was the British athlete getting top-20 results: 18th in the Middle and 14th in the Long. The GBR relay teams were 7th in the Women's and 10th in the Men's..

The European Championships in 2024 were in the forest formats in Hungary. The event centre was in Várgesztes, 100km west of Budapest and the races were in continental terrain of the Vértes Hills. It was also Round 3 of the World Cup, the first two rounds having been sprint only formats, and it came barely a few weeks after the World Champs in Ediburgh, which were also sprint only races. For some of the athletes tuning their forest orienteering after a long period of sprint focus was a challenge.

The Men's Relay, with three Sweden teams near the front but only the first one to count, ended Norway - Sweden - Switzerland. GBR were 14th. The Women's Relay finished Switzerland - Norway - Sweden, with GBR 9th.

The 2024 World Championships were in Edinburgh. It was the second time a World Champs had been sprint only and it was very well done. The build up and lead in events had been successful. The support of the City and University was great, and there were hundreds of volunteer helpers. The arenas were splendid, each special in their own way. The courses were notably imagiantive and technical and it all went pretty smoothly.

By the end the big nations had taken all the medals (Sweden, Switzerland 6 each, Norway 2; Finland 1) but Czechia, France, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Great Britain all had athletes in a top-6 who were presented with a diploma at the medals ceremonies.

Megan Carter-Davies and Grace Molloy were the British athletes getting a top-6: Megan in the Knockout Sprint and Grace in the Individual Sprint.

The European Championships in 2023 were in the sprint formats in historic towns of Northern Italy. The event centre was in Pescheira del Garda and the races were in Verona, Soave and Vicenza. The Sprint Relay was won by Sweden, and the GB team was 6th. Ralph Street made the podium on all the race days with the sprint relay and two fourth places, but he didn't win a medal. Megan Carter-Davies, Jonathan Crickmore and Nathan Lawson had top-20 results. Cecilie Andersen, Peter Hodkinson, Eddie Narbett all got through qualification on one or two days, and Freddie Carcas missed out by the narrowest of margins. In fact the individual days were full of the competition of narrow margins.

Tove Alexandersson and Matthias Kyburz both won two gold and one silver in three races. Sara Hagstrom and Jonatan Gustafsson won two medals each and made the podium every day.

It was to Swiss mountain forests of the Flims-Laax valley for the World Orienteering Championships 2023. The courses were both as physical and technical as expected and the races threw few surprises in the medallists:.Tove Alexandersson and Matthias Kyburz both won two golds and a silver. They lost out in the long to the golden couple of Simona Aebersold and Kasper Fosser. The weather was heavy at times, but did not get as bad as two different days the next week, when the 5000 runner Swiss-O week cancelled races up the mountains because of dangerous storms.

The European Orienteering Championships for 2022 took place in Estonia and were for the forest disciplines. The medal races were the 4th, 6th and 7th August.

Eventor - Orienteering World Cup Round 2 and European Championships 2022

All races used the same arena, in the Põlula forest, near Rakvere, midway between Tallinn and the Russian border. For the previous European Championships, back pre-COVID in 2018 and covering more disciplines GB had a team of 17 including only one runner outside the 25-30 age group. This time Britain took 13 athletes, but it was much more slanted towards development. Our preview article on the team

Pedestrian Crossing Signal in Fredericia

Great Britain had a very successful championships. It was simply incredible.

The success began with the first of the five races, the Sprint Relay, where GB won silver. It was GB’s first medal after seven World Championships without one, and the first ever in a Sprint Relay. The success was crowned for GB in the last race as Megan Carter-Davies became World Champion in Individual Sprint. The team won four medals in all, which is as many as in the previous 17 years combined. Additionally there were two top-6 results, two top-10s, and three top-20s. Only 2 of the 13 entries were not at least top-20.

Update November 2022: The full TV broadcasts are available free of charge - International Orienteering Channel on YouTube; they are very good.

Alice Leake photo: Fred Härtelt

The 2021 Nokian Tyres World Orienteering Championships (WOC) took place in Czechia, from 3rd - 9th July. The event centre was the small tourist town of Doksy north-west of Prague. The competition included races in Sprint, Sprint Relay, Middle, Relay and Long formats. There were extensive COVID protocols in place, and the pandemic meant that not all countries took part with the size of team that they normally would.

It was a very successful competition with excellent organisation and planning, and very good television coverage.

Night

Organised by Mar Orienteering Club at Muir of Dinnet on Saturday 23rd February.

Women

• 1. Fay Walsh (Edinburgh University)
• 2. Hazel Wright (Mar)
• 3. Claire Ward (Interlopers)