Peter at the World Orienteering Championships

The World Orienteering Championships 2023 is being held in Flims Laax in the Swiss Alps in July 2023. This is a 'forest' World championships which is the classic version of orienteering. International orienteering has recently gone to a format of alternating each year between a 'forest' World Champs (long races in the forest) with an 'urban' World Champs (short races round towns and parks).

This year, there are 3 competitions; the long distance, middle distance (with a qualifier) and a relay (team of 3). Orienteering races are planned for a certain winning time as terrain across the world varies considerably. The long has a planned winning time of 90 minutes and 35 minutes for the middle/ relay. All races are run individually. The relay is a traditional relay of 1 member after the other with a mass start for all teams and slightly different courses for each team so that you can't just follow.

Peter is selected as 1 of 2 British men to race the Long Distance on Thursday 13th July. The race is approximately 14.4 km and 730m climb through the alpine meadows and forest above Laax (that's measured in a straight line so we will end up running quite a bit further than that I imagine). It’s planned for a 90 minute winning time so Peter will have to moving pretty quickly in order to cover place well! Think of the long as a half marathon but straight through the forest.

They will probably start at the top of one of the cable cars and we will race down through the forest before finishing in a stadium in the town. Each country only has a limited number of entries and so the race is between the best 60-70 in the world (with GB only having 2 spots). It will all be televised on Swiss/Scandinavian television and there will also be a live stream on the website (the television is 9 euros to access but there will also be free results and free live GPS tracking). Each runner is tracked by GPS with live cameras in the forest.

Peter headed out on Friday 30th June for a final altitude training camp in the Italian dolomites before heading over to Switzerland.

"It’s set for an exciting week and I’m very proud to be representing my country in the sport I love. I've been putting in a lot of steep climbs and longer tempo sessions in preparation for the long distance. I am anticipating some very steep climbs as well as descents, long route choices and very technical navigation towards the end."

Sadly, orienteering is not (yet) an Olympic sport and it's performance squad falls short of funding from Sport England or UK Sport. Therefore, British Orienteering pay for the entry fees but it is up to the competitors to fund all other aspects of racing themselves (getting there, hire car, accommodation, food etc.).

The cost to each athlete will be around £1,800-£2,000. Peter has secured funding from the North West Orienteering Association and the Club Committee has agreed to fund £250 towards Peter's cost. The committee encourages members to contribute to funding Peter if you can.

The GB team announcement can be found here.

Examples of the orienteering map in Laax from a WOC training camp some of my team mates have been on this week (the arrows are a GPS trace of the competitors in the forest): Livelox

General orienteering video of two of the Swiss home favourites. Get a sense of the terrain and orienteering itself .