Thank to the sponsors who were Virkiä Jukola 2007 in Finland, Martin Kronlund Trophy in Spain, Orienteering Today, Lucie Navarová and her Jukola 2006 calendar and the Vavrys company, WorldofO and Orienteering Today were able to draw lucky winners among those who voted in the Poll 2006.

Here is the list of the “lucky ones”:

The prizes to the winners will be delivered by post. The winners shall claim their prizes at jan@sportoftoday.com. The entries to the Martin Kronlund trophy and Jukola 2007 are transitional. However, the person who has won them shall indicate, in an email sent to the address jan@sportoftoday.com, name of the person who will claim the entry. This person shall claim the entry at the email address jan@sportoftoday.com.

Introduction of the sponsors:

Vavrys company: Producer of top elite orienteering clothing, shoes, gaters and other equipment, which is sold world-wide.

Virkiä Jukola 2007 in Finland: world’s best and biggest orienteering club relay, which will be held in exciting terrains around Lapua this year on 16th and 17th June.

Martin Kronlund Trophy in Spain: an international Orienteering event in Spain with the greatest tradition. This year it will be held in terrain around Peguerinos 80 km northwest of Madrid at the weekend of 10th - 11th March.

Orienteering Today: The world’s only international orienteering magazine covering Orienteering in all its forms, whereever it is done. The magazine was reorganized last year and is now published in Norway.

Jukola 2006 calendar: Lucie Navarová is the photographer of Orienteering Today and the photos in this calender for the year 2007 feature the highlights of the 2006 Jukola in Salo as seen through the lens of her camera.

Australian Hanny Allston was not surprisingly voted as a very clear number one in the “Junior of 2006″ category in the “Best of Orienteering 2006″ poll staged by the two major source for international orienteering news - the website World of O and the magazine Orienteering Today. With 727 votes, Allston got more than three times as many votes as Russian Taniana Kozlova. With a Gold medal from the Sprint distance in the World Orienteering Championships, a Gold medal from the Long distance in the Junior World Championships in Lithuania, and a JWOC Silver medal in Sprint - Allston did not give much chance for her contenders.

Third in the “Junior of 2006″ category was the Danish Søren Bobach. Thus, also in the junior category there were two women on top, with the best man in the third place.

With the World Orienteering Championship gold medals in Long and Middle distances in Denmark in 2006, the Swiss runner Simone Niggli-Luder completed a collection of incredible 12 gold medals from World Championships in Orienteering between 2001 and 2006. This fantastic achievement was recognized as the “Orienteering achievement of the year 2006″ by the more than 1500 people voting in the “Best of Orienteering 2006″ poll staged by the two major source for international orienteering news - the website World of O and the magazine Orienteering Today.

It was a close call, though - with Australian junior Hanny Allston being only 25 votes behind Niggli-Luder. Allston was actually the only one managing to beat Niggli-Luder in an individual World Championships distance this year - and nearly managed to do the same in the poll for the achievement of the year 2006.

Orienteering Today: Congratulations Simone! You have won 12 WOC medals in the senior class, which is something incredible and something which was also greatly appreciated by people who voted in the Poll and gave you over 400 votes… Is there any of these medals which you are specially proud of?
Niggli-Luder: I think the four gold medals I won in Switzerland were very special, but also the last gold is always special. For me this is the gold I won in Denmark in Middle distance. It was a very good race for me and again I won after tough fight against Marianne, and again this was followed by this huge crowd of people, which made the atmosphere even more special.

Orienteering Today: What do your days look now, in the middle of winter? Have you changed anything about your training or your preparations compared to the last years?
Niggli-Luder: Principally the training is the same, but every year I try to change something to make the training even better and of higher quality. I always try to find things to improve. Just a couple of days ago I came back from the Canary Islands from a training camp, where I was with my Swedish friends, which was very nice. The weather was sunny all the time, with temperatures about 25°C. Just perfect conditions for training. The only bad thing about it was that I am in Switzerland right now, where we have lots of snow and temperatures below zero. It was a hard change :-)

Orienteering Today: Do you need to do special thing to motivate yourself now during this period to go on?
Niggli-Luder: For me it’s not a big problem, I really like to train and if the weather is nice outside and I feel my body is ready and healthy, then I have really no problem to motivate myself for training. Perhaps it would be different if I got injured or something, but right now it feels really good to be out and training.

Orienteering Today: Are you hungry for the 2007 season to begin?
Niggli-Luder: Yes. I really am. Two weeks ago we had the first competition in Switzerland. And I really felt hungry and happy to be able to compete again. So I really look forward to 2007 and the challenges ahead.
(read the rest of the interview in Orienteering Today Issue 01/2007)

The best man in the “Orienteering achievement of the year 2006″ poll was Jani Lakanen of Finland. However, Lakanen is not disappointed by being beaten by the two women. - Third is a wonderful place! I think that Sime and Hanny have deserved their places in that list. Sime has been many years in a class of her own and Hanny surprised everybody by beating Sime :), Lakanen comments. And Lakanen also has his goals for 2007 ready: - My goal is to improve my middle orienteering. I still miss a WOC medal in middle distance (4. in 1999 and 2001) and I want to win Jukola and Tiomila!, just being back from his best training camp ever in South Africa.

a runner who managed something very few thought would be possible: winning the WOC Sprint distance in Århus when still being a junior - and topping this with becoming the first non-European World Champion in orienteering!

For this achievement, Hanny Allston got 409 votes in the “Orienteering Achievement of 2006″ Poll - and claimed the second spot. Last year Allston showed the whole world that it is possible to reach for the absolute top in this sport even when you don’t live and train in Scandinavia or Europe. She got noticed when she achieved, as 19-year-old, a 6th place in the WOC Long distance in Japan. One year later she was back on the WOC scene and at the age of 20 she claimed WOC gold in Sprint!

In the “Best Junior 2006″ category, Tatiana Kozlova claimed the second spot with 172 votes. Kozlova is gold medalist from JWOC Relay in 2006, and holder of the 5th place from the JWOC long 2006. This Russian is exceptional in Ski-Orienteering too: three gold medals and one silver from the Junior World Championships in Russian Ivanovo last February are certainly a solid proof of her outstanding skills.

One spot left
Minna Kauppi, Emil Wingstedt, Simone Luder or Kajsa Nilsson? These are the 4 world class runners not being named yet in the “Achievement of the year” category - and there is only one spots left on the podium - the three others are no inside the Top-6! Tomorrow you will now who the orienteering community named for the “Orienteering achievement of the year 2006″ and the “Junior of the year 2006″!

Three prizes were announced to be drawn among the webpages linking to the “Best of Orienteering 2006 Poll” (with a triple weighting for heavily visited sites) to make the poll results as representative for the orienteering community as possible. The websites of the Norwegian Orienteering Federation, FIF Hillerød and Emiliano Corona have been drawn as the winners from all the webpages linking to the “Best of Orienteering 2006 Poll” (see here for the complete list of pages linking). The poll is organized by the two major sources for international orienteering news:

• The website World of O delivers international orienteering news from more than 100 different orienteering pages - and with more than 100.000 visits a month is the major source for international orienteering news on the Internet.
• The magazine Orienteering Today is the largest independent international Orienteering Magazine - a magazine covering orienteering in all its forms, all over the world, in a way no other magazine does - with.

Read on below to see the drawn prizes among the webpages linking to the poll. The prizes for the voters will be announced shortly.

First prize: Norwegian Orienteering Federation
The first prize is a text add for two months on the front page of World of O under “Sponsored links” for any orienteering related site (must not be the one with the link to the poll on) + a one year subscription on Orienteering Today. In addition, they are entitled to an ad in the Orienteering Today magazine. Visit Norwegian Orienteering Federation webpage.

Second prize: FIF Hillerød club page
The second prize is a one month text add on the front page of World of O for any orienteering related site + a small ad in the Orienteering Today magazine. Visit FIF Hillerød webpage

Third prize: Emiliano Corona
The third prize is a one month text add on the front page of World of O for any orienteering related site + a small ad in the Orienteering Today magazine. Visit Emiliana Corona webpage

Jani Lakanen - the WOC 2006 champion over the Long distance and Søren Bobach - the big Danish surprise in this years JWOC with his gold on the middle distance. Congratulations to both of them! Jani Lakanen was nominated in the “Achievement of the year 2006″ category for his gold over the Long distance in both WOC and EOC this year - winning the “classic orienteering distance” in the two most important races in 2006.

He also was part of Finlands silver team in the WOC relay. Back in 2000, Lakanen was the overall World Cup winner. For a long time he had been known as one of the World’s best runners in Long distance. He won countless national champion titles in the discipline on the home ground, but until Denmark, the most precious of the medals in this discipline from the World Championships had been missing in his collection - with the silver from 2001 in Tampere being his maximum. At the age of 30, Lakanen still has a few years of competing on the elite level ahead of him.

Minna Kauppi, Emil Wingstedt, Simone Luder, Hanny Allston or Kajsa Nilsson? These are the 5 world class runners not being named yet in the “Achievement of the year” category - and there are only two spots left on the podium! On tuesday you will all now who the orienteering community named for the “Orienteering achievement of the year 2006″ and the “Junior of the year 2006″!

On spot number 4 in the “Orienteering Poll 2006″ we find two runners we will hear a lot of in the years to come. In the “Orienteering achievement 2006″ category, the overall World Cup winner Thierry Gueorgiou took the 4th spot - whereas Olav Lundanes took the 4th spot in the “Junior 2006″ category.

… none other than the Norwegian World Champion 2006 over the middle distance - Holger Hott Johansen - in the “Achievement of the year 2006″ category. In the junior category - Denmark’s surprise junior Signe Klinting took the 5th place. During the weekend number four and three in the poll will be revealed. Continuing at the beginning of next week, the two first in each category will be presented - along with the prize winners & poll sponsors.

The winners in the “Orienteering achievement of the year 2006″ and the “Junior of the year 2006″ poll will be revealed in a countdown manner the next 6 days - starting with number 6 today. A big presentation of the winner of the two categories will be made in the magazine Orienteering Today. The voters winning prizes organized by “Orienteering Today” will also be presented.

Number 6 in the “Achievement of the year 2006″ category is the WOC Relay Champion of 2006, Valentin Novikov. As anchor bringing Russia to a historic world Championship gold in the Relay. Novikov’s run on the last leg was one of the highlights of the 2006 World Championships - but not enough to earn him the title for the orienteering achievement of the year 2006. See also the interview with Novikov.

In the junior category, Ingunn Hultgreen Weltzien took the 6th position. With age still a junior, she displayed great runs on the senior level too, the 5th place in Sprint at the European Champs in Estonia being her top. In the JWOC Sprint she confirmed her class in the discipline and became the 2006 Junior World champion. At the Junior World Championships in Kranj in Slovenia in Cross Country she achieved Gold in the Relay.

Prizes for linking to the poll
The prizes for linking to the poll will be drawn the coming days. If you have linked to the poll, and are not on the list below - please notify me as soon as possible to be in on the drawing for nice prizes!

• Orienteering Australia
• Alternativet.nu
• Martin Pongratz
• OPN.no
• Alession Tenani
• Øystein Kvaal Østerbø
• Simone Niggli
• SOLV Spitzensport
• Ivo Danailov
• Danish Orienteering Federation
• JAK TO VIDÍ BÉĎA
• Moscow Compass
• Sävedalen AIK
• Okansas
• OTTOBRE31
• OLG Rymenzburg
• IL Tyrving
• I-OL.nl
• De Laatste post
• FIF Hillerød
• Emiliano Corona
• Norwegian Orienteering Federation
• Hanny Allston

Update: 27 votes is all that is between the two top ranked in the poll for the “Achievement of the year 2006″. This is really going to be a tight race in most prestigious category in the “Best of Orienteering 2006″ poll staged by World of O and Orienteering Today. - By now probably nearly all orienteers have visited the poll page and voted, was the wording in an email I got some time ago. However, I am sure there are still quite a few orienteers out there who have not yet had the chance to read about these fantastic achievements of these extraordinary sportsmen and sportwomen! Today is your last chance to vote - and to tell your friends to vote! The poll is closing tonight! Go to the poll page and vote - both for the “Achievement of the year” category and the “Junior of the year” category!

Interviews
Have you missed any of the interviews? Here they are:

• “Kajsa Nilsson
• “Minna Kauppi
• Thierry Gueorgiou
• Simone Niggli
• Emil Wingstedt
• Valentin Novikov

Go to the poll page and vote - and tell your friends and club mates about the poll!

Help us getting out to the corners of the o-world!
Have you got a web page in your orienteering club? Or a personal home page? Put up a link to the “Best of Orienteering 2006 Poll” - and make it possible for everybody to read about the fantastic achievements these fine nominated men and women have done this year - and to decide who really did the best achievement.

Sites linking to the poll
The following pages are linking to the poll or have written a news article about the poll, and are in on the drawing for Orienteering Today subscription and ads at the World of O (see more about prizes at poll page). Thank you to all of you! And for those not in: Link up - write an email to jan@kocbach.net, and I’ll put you on the list! But hurry up before the drawing of the prizes!
There is still about 10% chance to get a prize if you join in - and if you write about the poll today (January 18th), it is still time… Maybe the visitors from YOUR site will decide the poll!

• Orienteering Australia
• Alternativet.nu
• Martin Pongratz
• OPN.no
• Alession Tenani
• Øystein Kvaal Østerbø
• Simone Niggli
• SOLV Spitzensport
• Ivo Danailov
• Danish Orienteering Federation
• JAK TO VIDÍ BÉĎA
• Moscow Compass
• Sävedalen AIK
• Okansas
• OTTOBRE31
• OLG Rymenzburg
• IL Tyrving
• I-OL.nl
• De Laatste post
• FIF Hillerød
• Emiliano Corona
• Norwegian Orienteering Federation
• Hanny Allston

PS! If your site is missing on the above list, you have maybe forgotten to write me an email about it? Or to put up the link?