Route to Christmas: 2025
Route to Christmas: Day 1 2025
The 19th edition of the traditional Route to Christmas here at World of O starts with a long and interesting leg from the Czech race INOV-8 CUP organized in north-eastern Czechia in early September. Straight or around – climb or not? Enjoy the challenges – just like the competitors! Your job in Route to Christmas is to take a good look
Route to Christmas: Day 2 2025
For the second day of this years’ Route to Christmas 2025 we have chosen a very interesting leg from the Norwegian Championships Long distance. This is a long leg towards the end of a tough long distance race – with several bigger hills that you have to choose how to handle. The race was organized in Lygna north of Oslo in early Septemb
Route to Christmas: Day 3 2025
In today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 we travel all the way to New Zealand! Here we offer a long leg from the JWOC trials and South Islands Championships in February. On this leg there were lots of different alternatives chosen by the runners – showing “a rainbow across the map”. Thanks a lot to course setter Matt Bixley
Route to Christmas: Day 4 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 is a 3.4 km long leg from the men’s H21 class in the Finnish Championships Long distance, organized close to Tampere in early September 2025. This very interesting course from the Finnish Champs Long was suggested by Joni Parviainen for Course of the Year 2025, and the 8th leg was pointed out by
Route to Christmas: Day 5 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 is a very interesting leg from the Junior European Orienteering Cup (JEC) in Loch Ard Forest in Scotland this autumn. This is slow terrain, but it looks very long to go around – what would you choose? This course was suggested by Ivar Lundanes as his candidate for “The Course of the Year 20
Route to Christmas: Day 6 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 is a leg from a night orienteering competition in pretty tricky terrain – here you really have to focus. The leg is from the Norwegian Championships Night Orienteering. Thanks a lot to Halvor for suggestion this course as a candidate for Course of the Year 2025 – that’s how I stumble
Route to Christmas: Day 7 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 is from the 7th race of the Swedish League in June – and this time we take a look at a tricky leg in the women’s class. This is actually the first tip we received in Route to Christmas 2025 – back in the start of June from Sindre Langaas. He also reported on a big mistake by Vilma vo
Route to Christmas: Day 8 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas is from Italy – a country we visit every pre-Christmas! This time we have chosen a long leg in very hilly terrain that challenged the world’s best junior orienteers at the Junior Orienteering World Championships this July. Thank you very much to Terje Mathisen for the excellent tip! The leg is as
Route to Christmas: Day 9 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas is an interesting long leg from the men’s Superelite in the Maximus O Meeting 2025, organized in Spain in the middle of February. Very stony terrain – and also quite hilly! What would you choose here? The leg is as usually first provided without routes – you may take a look at it and think a
Route to Christmas: Day 10 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 is from a really cool terrain in southern France. Looking at the map you get the feeling that this is an artifically generated map for theoretical route choice training, but this terrain and leg was actually used for second stage of the Provence Orienteering Meeting last February. Thanks a lot to Eva Ju
Route to Christmas: Day 11 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 is one of the courses that has been among the most popular in the nomination for Course of the Year 2025: The World Orienteering Championships Long distance. Note also that today is your last chance to add nominations for Course of the Year 2025, so time to head over and check if your favourite is alrea
Route to Christmas: Day 12 2024
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas is from a course that was described as “the best long distance race that I have run” when the course was nominated for Course of the Year a few days ago. We are now through half of this year’s Route to Christmas legs – and we have also opened Course of the Year 2025 for voting today. H
Route to Christmas: Day 13 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 is something very different from what we have seen so far – today we travel to Switzerland for a Sprint leg. Thanks a lot to Silvan Ullmann, course setter at the Knock-Out sprint at the World Cup final, for a very long and detailed analysis of one of the legs in his course from the quarterfinal.
Route to Christmas: Day 14 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 is another leg from hilly Czech terrain – this time from the European Youth Orienteering Championships Long distance. This is the type of leg where you HAVE to decide where to run before leaving the control … Thanks a lot to Stanislav for suggesting this leg as a part of his nomination the
Route to Christmas: Day 15 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 is a leg from the French Championships Long distance in hilly terrain which gives some nice opportunities for route choices. The tip from Eva Jurenikova from this competition was actually for another leg (leg 11, M21), but after reviewing the course I decided that the third leg in M21 also has some inter
Route to Christmas: Day 16 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 is the 14th leg from the European Youth Orienteering Championships (EYOC) in Czechia. A few days ago we featured a leg from the EYOC Long distance, so at EYOC the route setters really did a good job in great terrains. Thanks a lot to John Casey for the tip! As a sidenote, both EYOC Sprint and EYOC Long a
Route to Christmas: Day 17 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 is an epic 3.8 km long leg from the “long night” of the largest international orienteering relay, Jukola. And what a leg – here you can get mentally exhausted just by trying to figure out where to run! Thanks a lot to Agnar Reolen for the tip! Another reason for including the Jukola
Route to Christmas: Day 18 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 is a long leg from the 3+3 Long distance in Sälen, Sweden this summer – and the same leg was used both in the men’s and women’s elite course. This one looks fun and challenging! Thanks a lot to Hugo Claesson and Eva Jurenikova for the tip. This course was also close to being nominated
Route to Christmas: Day 19 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas is from the Victorian Long Distance Championships at Mount Korong in Australia. This was an epic competition with some extraordinary long legs! The 5th and 9th leg are even more spectacular than the 4th leg chosen here, but I found the 4th leg more interesting for Route to Christmas due to the balancing of
Route to Christmas: Day 20 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 is a leg in spectacular surroundings from the 7th Swiss National Event this year at Long Heinzenberg. – A never before mapped gem with as always in the swiss mountains stunning surroundings and views, Silvan Ullmann wrote when nominating this course for Course of the Year 2025. – Many sec
Route to Christmas: Day 21 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 is leg 14 from one of the most interesting sprint courses this year – the European Championships (EOC) Individual sprint in Belgium. This course has also been suggested for Course of the Year 2025 (vote here until Monday December 22nd), and was one of four sprint courses in the Top 15 as of this
Route to Christmas: Day 22 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas is a long leg from the long distance race at Aguiar da Beira ‘O’ Meeting (ABOM), organized in Portugal in the end of February. The courses at the long distance of ABOM 2025 look very interesting overall, and Simon Hector wrote the following when nominating the M21E1 course for Course of the Year 2
Route to Christmas: Day 23 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas is a night orientering leg from the Swiss night orienteering championships, organized in October. The terrain does maybe not look that exciting, but this is still an interesting leg, straight out from the start. The leg is as usually first provided without routes – you may take a look at it and think
Route to Christmas: Day 24 2025
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2025 is a long leg from one of the highlights on this year’s World Cup calendar – the long distance race in Idre. There were actually several interesting legs on this course. Here we chose the last of the long legs as the same leg was featured both in the men’s and women’s class, and