Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) 2023

COURTESY OF RAUL FERRA ORIENTEERING COACH RF-COACH.COM

The JWOC 2023 in Romania kicked off with the sprint race, which took place in a residential complex that offered constant technical demands on a slightly long route for the modality (over 15 min winning times). In the women’s class, the talented Hungarian runner Rita Máramarosi was the favourite to win and she did not disappoint with a clean run from less to more. In second place the Norwegian Pia Young Vik, followed by the Finnish Eeva Liina Ojanaho completed the podium. In the men’s class, the German runner Anselm Reichenbach surprised by beating the French Guilhem Verove by just 8 s, with the Estonian Jurgen Joonas closing the podium only 1 s behind.

Analysing both courses, we can see that there were hardly any really decisive major route choices, but that the correct implementation and the speed of the race were the most decisive aspects. However, we do find a somewhat more decisive leg in the men’s course. Leg 13–14 was a very long leg with many artificial barriers on the shortest way, which made a real length longer than 600 m. We can see many different options to choose from, and how the winner managed to implement the best one (with the best balance length/turns) at a very high speed.

On the second day of the JWOC 2023, we enjoyed the sprint-relay race, which was part of the JWOC program for the second year, after its ‘emergency’ inclusion in Portugal. Fortunately, it seems that this modality has come to stay in the standard program of JWOC. The first leg runner of one of the theoretically strongest teams, the Swiss, missed quite a bit of time from the start, while defending champions Norway fell a bit further behind than expected. Controls 13 and 14 in the ‘labyrinth’ gave more than a headache to many of the girls, the first-leg runners. When the boys’ turn came, on the second and third legs, the French team managed to turn the race around with two very powerful performances that left them almost in the lead, just a few seconds behind the Finnish team. Norway, the Czech Republic, and Sweden were also very close in the fight. Hungary, with Máramarosi on the last leg, 40 s behind…. And this is when, once again, Rita Máramarosi (born in 2005, which means she will still have two more seasons as junior) put on a real show hunting down the leading group, taking her own route choices and breaking away solo to give Hungary a big win. Awesome! Reigning champions Norway finished second with a very good performance from Pia Young Vik, with Finland‘s Eeva Liina Ojanaho (also born in 2005!) bronze medal.