2026 - Orienteering in Europe

Over the European Summer…

JWOC, WOC, EYOC, and many more OCs…

Over the European summer, many of the big international orienteering events take place, nearly always exclusively in Europe… Antipodean NOC members Zefa and Tide Fa’avae spend time with o-friends on the northern hemisphere, participating in a variety of orienteering championships - their stories can be read below.

Zefa Fa’avea’s European summer...

Sweden—WC Round 2

“First up was the World Cup in Skara – Lidköping, Sweden, 28-31 May 2026, my first ever Sprint World Cup. The courses were fast, packed with artificial barriers, and super technical. In the Sprint Knock-Out I had a solid race, missing out for qualification by just 9 seconds.

I was happy with my sprint race too, finishing 54th (135 participants in total) in a time of 15.48, 91 seconds after Norwegian winner Kasper Fosser.

Jukola

Next up was Finland for Jukola. The atmosphere was unreal, with over 1,500 teams in my race, thousands of runners, and huge crowds of spectators. I ran the 6th leg for Farum-Tisvilde OK, and we finished 10th overall. It was pretty cool to be part of such a strong team and race in one of the biggest relay events in the world.

O-Festivalen

I wrapped up the trip at O-Festivalen in Norway, racing in H21E. The terrain was tough and physical, and after a few weeks of racing around Scandinavia I was definitely feeling it. I managed a solid middle race to finish 9th, which was a nice way to end my trip. 

Steep learning curve

A huge thank you to Nelson Orienteering for your ongoing support. Racing through Sweden, Finland and Norway against some of the best orienteers in the world has been an unreal experience, and I've learnt a lot that I'll take into the future.”

What would you do?

The map fragment on the right shows Zefa’s first leg of his Jukola race. He shares: “My hardest leg this race was definitely the approach to the first control, because there weren’t enough features to go on.” How would you have approached this control?

 

Tide Fa’avea’s European summer…

Zefa’s sister Tide was also active in Europe during the international orienteering championship season, participating in JWOC for the second and last time, followed by Swiss O-week. The Junior World Orienteering Championships were held in Karlskrona, Sweden, from 29 June till 4 July 2026. Trossö, the historic centre of Karlskrona and part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, offered a unique blend of naval history, charming streets, open squares, and intricate urban terrain – a perfect setting for sprint orienteering.

In Tide’s words: “JWOC 2026 was such a fun, action-packed week for me. The team was awesome, and we had lots of laughs. Race-wise I was happy with three out of my five races. 

Starting with the sprint on the first day, we were running around Karlskrona. It was technically easier than we had anticipated, which made for a lot of straight running. The map was cool, classic European town sprint. Little alleyways and cool buildings. I ended 96th out of a grant total of 150 participants. 

The next day, the Sprint relay was exciting as always. I ran first for our third team and had a good run. It was so chaotic with everyone sprinting and darting around corners, and there were definitely a couple of collisions. 

The long distance one day later was quite the journey through some awesome Swedish terrain. I was disappointed with my race, as I made multiple large errors throughout. You just needed to trust your bearing and keep in contact with the map at all times, which is mentally difficult for that long. I ended 64th, again out of 150 participants.

We then had a rest day to let our bodies recover a little. 

The Middle distance is a sensitive one for me. I stuffed number 1, managed to lock back in, and ran well until 12. At 12, I jumped to 14 and was trying to navigate to 15. No surprises, it didn’t make sense. I wasted a lot of time before finding 14 and thinking I had saved myself from mispunching before continuing. In this mind explosion, I skipped 13, resulting in a mispunch (mp).

The Forest relay was held on the same map as the Middle. I was the middle runner in a team of Rachel Baker and Phoebe Hunt. Rachel handed over to me in 18th place. I went out, made two small errors, but had a great run and brought us in at 7th before handing over to Phoebe.

We came 8th overall, which is awesome and full circle moment from my first JWOC, where Kaia, Zara, and I got 8th as well. 

I was stoked to have such an awesome team around me as I raced my last JWOC. More adventures ahead at Swiss O week for another week of racing before heading back to uni. 

Tide Fa'avae