World Orienteering Day – A record breaking event
On Wednesday May 11th 2016, the first ever World Orienteering Day took place all over the world. It proved to be a great success, with more than 250 000 participants all around the world taking part in an orienteering event.
After having finalised the results, the total of participation in the first ever World Orienteering Day stands at 252 927 participants at 2013 locations in 81 countries and territories.
What was once only an idea has come to be a reality beyond what anyone could have hoped. Schools, clubs and enthusiast all over the world made a fantastic contribution, and together managed to beat the world record.
From South Africa to Hong Kong, from Greenland to New Caledonia, from Ecuador to Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of youngsters participated in World Orienteering Day. Following the idea “Think globally, act locally”, people all over the world took part in locally organised orienteering events, and celebrated the biggest world-wide orienteering event ever.
Leho Haldna, the President of IOF says:
"Following such a success as the first year of the project can be hard, but we should not be daunted by this. 2016, we showed the world just how much passion and initiative can be found in orienteers all over the world, and 2017 we have the chance to prove it again, and share orienteering with even more people. I invite all volunteers and activists in orienteering to support World Orienteering Day 2017 by organising events near their home. All events, even the smallest ones, are extremely valuable to reach our target: a continued global success."
The World Orienteering Day offers a great possibility to promote our lovely sport! Therefore:
On Wednesday May 24th 2017, we would like to see people of all ages taking part in some sort of Orienteering event.
Clubs from all over the world can make a fantastic contribution that benefits both education at school and development of the sport.
The IOF currently has 70 member federations. The World Orienteering Day has a great potential to be spread all over the world. The concept is now developed, we have the inspiration and we have enthusiasm.
We want your help!
WOD contacts
To get WOD succesful once more we need people who are passionate about our sport and who want the orienteering experienced by young people as a cool and awesome activity.
We will be very happy if we can get a person or some more in your country that may be our WOD-contact which we can communicate with and can get clubs and schools involved in your country. Please send us e-mail address and phone number.
WOD ambassadors
We have already received positive response from elite runners in Sweden, Denmark and Norway who want to be our WOD ambassadors. Their task is to spread the message of WOD's visions of visibility, accessibility, more participants and more countries. Please let us know if there are some elite runners who may be WOD ambassador in your country. Please send us e-mail address and phone number.