Top O-Travel Picks: May 2010

It is time to plan some orienteering adventures for May! Ostsee Orienteering in Germany, Baltic Cup in Poland, Asian Orienteering Championships in Japan and Hungarian 24 hour orienteering relay are some of the choices you have. And of course there is the European Champs in Bulgaria in the end of May.

Generally May is not the best month for Multiday-events – this is rather a month were there are many national competition weekends, and the international calendar is not very crowded. Still I try to pick out some of the interesting events from World of O Calendar for weekends were you can have at least two nice days. There are other gems out there which are not in World of O Calendar – please add a comment below if you know about an interesting O-weekend in May which it is worth travelling to!

In the Top O-Travel Picks-series of articles we will take a look at the most interesting events of 2010 for travelers – month by month – to guide you through the fixture list. Focus is on multiday-events and World Ranking events, as these are events which typically attract traveling orienteers.

Personal Picks

My personal picks for May:

• My number one choice would be the WOC 2005 terrain in Japan from the Long distance and Relay. This terrain will be used for the Asian Orienteering Championships in the start of May (May 1st – May 5th). Continental style terrain with very detailed contours and lots of route choice (see map sample above – click for full map). The forest is typical Japanese cedar forest – mostly very runnable. On the rest day the organisers are offering a sightseeing trip to Shirakawago – a World Heritage listed historical of traditional thatched houses and other historical sites nearby.



• The second choice is another event outside Europe, the Hatter’s Return 2-Days in the USA, offering 2 WRE competitions in interesting terrain (not far from the Hemlock Hills map shown below). The event is 110 km from New York City, and can also be combined with National A event at West Point, NY the previous weekend (May 1-2) and/or the USA Team Trials for WOC 2010 near West Point, NY the following weekend (May 15-16). If you find a cheap flight to New York, you can get a very nice week of orienteering here.
  

• The International Ostsee Orienteering in Northern Germany has a good reputation – having served interesting terrain on several occasions. The terrain description for this year also looks promising – but unfortunately the organizers did not post map samples on their webpage or on World of O Calendar. Might be a good choice, anyway (May 21st – May 24th)
• The Baltic Cup in northern Poland (May 22nd- May 23rd) has interesting terrain – similar to JWOC 2011 and also with the same organizers. 3 Days of Belgium is another multiday-event this weekend.
• The last weekend of May, there is the Hungarian 24 hour relay in Hungary. The 24 hour concept is really something one should try at least once – fun, but exhausting! If you don’t travel to Hungary this year, you can plan for a 24 hour relay in Germany next May.
• The other possibility the last weekend in May is the spectator races for the European Champs in Bulgaria. This first EOC weekend there is the Strandza cup, whereas there are two 3 Day events (Begun cup and Bulgaria Cup) during the remainder of EOC. Thus you can get a total of 8 events these 10 days in Bulgaria if you can take it…

Map samples

A map says more than 1000 words – at least to an orienteer. A few of the event organizers have added map samples in World of O Calendar – take a look below to see map samples for some of the Top Picks of May 2010.

Asian Orienteering Championships Japan – 2010-05-01

Asian Orienteering Championships Japan – 2010-05-01

3 Days of Belgium Belgium – 2010-05-22

All O-Travel Picks for May 2010

Here is the list of the Top O-Travel Picks for May 2010 – based on what was in World of O Calendar at the time of writing.

01.05	–	05.05		Asian Orienteering Championships	Japan
08.05	–	09.05		Hatter’s Return 2-Days	USA
21.05	–	24.05		33rd International Ostsee Orienteering race	Germany
22.05	–	24.05		3 Days of Belgium	Belgium
22.05	–	23.05		Baltic Cup 2010	Poland
29.05	–	30.05		Hungarian 24hour Orienteering Relay	Hungary
30.05				European Orienteering Championships	Bulgaria

Your favorite?

Are there important events missing in this overview? What is your personal favorite orienteering event in May 2010? Please use the comments to give additional information to the readers.

Note! Are you an event organizer for an event in June, July or August? Do your event a favour and update the event page in World of O Calendar with more information and map samples in order to get the possibility to be featured in the Top O-Travel Picks series.