Orienteering NZ wishes for our sport to continue to be a respectful, safe, and fair sport. To this end, we would like to remind everyone involved in our sport that all club members, coaches, managers, and supporters are bound by our sport’s code of conduct. This document outlines expectations for everyone involved in our sport […]

With the Junior World Orienteering Champs (JWOC) a month away, 8 members of the 12-strong team headed away to Kura Tāwhiti – Castle Hill for a weekend training camp of team bonding and specific training before heading to Europe.The weekend started on Friday night, with 5 of the team and coach participating in a cross country race event on Ilam […]

Introducing the 2016 NZ JWOC team, youngest to oldest, ladies before gentlemen.

Last weekend 4 of the team members, Tommy, Ed, Alice and myself, travel to Queenstown to race in the New Zealand Mountain Running Champs. The race was based in central Queenstown, starting from the base of the Gondola, and traversing up a vehicle access track, before moving onto some tight single track in the forest, […]

There’s only 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week and less than 8 weeks till JWOC 2016 now. Unfortunately, when you factor in university, travel to university, sleeping and eating that only leaves a little time to train even when you multitask eating, sleeping and university (oops). But somehow the long sessions […]

As the second day’s training in Rauland came to a close Tim Robertson decided he needed a haircut. But where, in a ski town, in summer you might ask.

On a stunning day in Rauland we headed out to one of the nicest maps of the area for our Long Distance Simulation Race.

Before meeting up with the team in Oslo, Dani, Kayla, Tommy, Devon and I had a couple of days in Sweden in the small town of Lund. We were able to find a sprint map close to where we were staying, which consisted of buildings and small patches of forest which helped us recover from […]

photo: Tommy, Alice and I fundraising at a rogaine It is less than a month out till JWOC, and it seems crazy how quickly time has flown from trials (which I ended up just watching), to nationals, to now! I cannot believe how soon it actually is, and whilst I am very nervous, the experience I gained […]

Introducing the 2015 New Zealand JWOC Team. Profiles, pictures, and background information…

The JWOC crew down in Christchurch have been busy. Competing in both the Geraldine Rogaine Autumn Muster (GRAM) 6 hour last weekend and the Mt Isobel Challenge on the 23rd.

My training build up for JWOC has been a bit harder mentally this year so far than in previous years. Over a month ago was nationals; I had been training well and was feeling confident in how my fitness and navigation had been progressing. After results from nationals which I could be content with I […]

Another adventure in foreign terrain has once again begun, since JWOC trials in March time has flew by in a blink of an eye and with only 7 weeks till my departure every training session will count and benefit me.

Maybe the course director had a point when he said Engineering was full time degree. I even laughed complacently at the 40hours of study he recommended a week whilst thinking of the pedestrian effort I put in last year. 7 weeks later and I think he may have had a point…Just look how long it’s […]

Photo Credit:  Foto: Carsten Nøhr Nielsen / Frame The Action After returning home from a four month trip to Europe last year with no plans of what I wanted to do this year, (let alone my future!) I knew I had some serious planning to do. I didn’t want to jump straight into university like […]

Photos to tell the story of the successful relay day…. Thunderstorms and a downpour of rain for the start of the relay Wet weather is Tim Robertson’s favourite orienteering condition… Shamus Morrison ran a strong race to maintain the team’s position in amongst the leaders. And Nick Hann smashed out an outstanding run to bring […]

Nick Hann’s hard work, determination, strength through challenging terrain and superb navigational skills have earned him a fantastic 5th place in the 2014 JWOC Middle Distance final. CONGRATULATIONS NBH!  

A sunny day for the middle qualification, so we were glad for the 10.00am start so that we did not have to run in the heat. The middle qualifier always passes quickly as there are 3 runners beginning at the same time. There are 3 courses and the fastest 20 on each course qualify for […]

The thunderstorms continued through the previous night so we were relieved to see clear weather for the Long distance day – though we were not confident it would last in the mountain area. We had an early start with the early runners needing to be at 6.50am bus. The terrain was hilly pine forest between […]

The athletes were quarantined in the Samakov Arena – a large complex with several levels. The warm up area was inside on the basement floor and the prestart was also inside the building. The athletes could hear the thunder outside and the earlier runners had the advantage of dry conditions. The heavy rain had spectators […]

Well what can I say, this was my first ever JWOC race and I’ve been caught out unlucky.  Mixed emotions flow through my body and trying to encapsulate this experience is hard. I feel frustrated at the “would’ve” situations that lie right in front of me yet what a hell of a race. Technically I […]

Download the OreinteeringNZ Media Release: Robertson Wins Gold – Media Release 23 July 2014 Thunderstorms did not prevent Tim Robertson from backing up his 2013 Bronze medal with a 2014 JWOC Gold medal in Samokov, Bulgaria   Download the OrienteeringNZ Media Release: Robertson Wins Gold – Media Release 23 July 2014

The 2014 Junior World Orienteering Championship races start Tuesday night (Tues 22nd July, 7pm NZST) with the Sprint. JWOC2014 is being held in Borovets, Bulgaria. New Zealand has a team of 6 women and 6 men plus coach and team manager. In addition, several kiwis have travelled to support the team. The New Zealand JWOC 2014 […]

The teams have arrived, the flags are raised, start lists are up, and you can count the hours until your start. This is the period when nerves start to set in. A morning jwalk around the long model map served well to keep our minds off the competition. The forest floor is very clean for […]

While the team enjoyed a sleep in and late breakfast, Karen Blatchford and I headed up on the gondola to run/walk as far up Mt Musala (2925m) as we could go before lunch. The altitude made us quite breathless when we ran – well, that is what we told ourselves when we were wheezing and […]

Sunday was a full rest day here in Borovets for the NZ and Aussie teams, with a rally just down the road to keep the boys occupied for the morning and also keeping us here with the road into the hotel being closed. The girls went for a walk into Borovets town to have a […]

Every year in Greenland around the end of June, the Ilulissat Orienteering Club (IOG) holds the Arctic Midnight Orienteering Competition, which comprises a short, middle and ultra long race. I travelled this year via Copenhagen and Kangalussat to this extraordinary destination to see what it was all about – and I wasn’t disappointed. Ilulissat is […]

In the lead up to JWOC our team along with the Aussies have done a series of simulation races where you are given all the relevant information to simulate a JWOC race. We did a long race, a middle race and a sprint, which Cam has already reported on. The long JWOC simulation was held […]

For our final race simulation, we headed out to what Nick recalls as the “rabid dog” map or the model map in a filthy part of Samokov. After a quick jog of the model map and a small dog scare later, we lined up ready to hit the streets.

Today we headed down to Samakov to run on the feared ‘Vazrajdane’ map (Translation from Bulgarian is “Vicious Great Danes”) If you have not already read NBH’s blog “Who let the dogs out” https://www.orienteering.org.nz/junior-world-championships/dogs-out/, then you need to read this to get background on why we approached this map with fear and trembling! It is […]