Author: Tuomas Kari

The final stage of the PWT December tour in China took place today in the UNESCO world heritage site Temple of Heaven in Beijing. The map was characterized by olive greens between which the runners aimed to choose the best routes on paved tracks. While most of the tracks were melt and “normal” to run, there was still some slippery parts along the way.

The best combination of route choices and speed were from Yannick Michiels (BEL) and Jana Peterova (CZE) who took clear victories. The battle of the second place was extremely tight as Jonas Hubacek (CZE) won his countryman Daniel Vandas by just one second. Lone Brochmann (NOR) and Hinako Inage (JPN) completed the women’s podium.

-“I think it was an unique opportunity to race in an UNESCO World Heritage Site. With making the forest out-of-bounds, the coursesetter offered many routechoices. I had a good flow and didn’t loose time. Picked often a slightly longer route with less corners to avoid slippery turns.“, commented Michiels.

-“It was really cool to be able to run a competition in the park of Temple of Heaven. I run quite clean with no mistakes, but I didn’t have the speed to challenge Jana today. It was of course special condition with snow, but not more than it was possible to still run quite fast.“, commented Brochmann.

Results

Photos

Maps:

The tour continued today in Beijing Garden Expo Park. With few minus degrees and after the year’s first snowfall yesterday in Beijing, there was fresh snow on the ground, which made reading the terrain even more challenging and also forced the runners to take it a bit carefully in tight turns. Garden Expo Park is a huge park area with several sprint maps of distinct character, and we have also seen previous PWT races take place in the area. This time the race was in the middle part of the park offering some very detailed orienteering challenges among the pavillions.

The victories went to Japan and Czech with Hinako Inage and Jonas Hubacek mastering the snowy conditions the best.

–“I’m really happy to be back at the Park World Tour. Today, everything was covered in snow, which made for some special conditions, but I managed to stay in control and only fell once. It was a beautiful park with some tricky sections and I really enjoyed the race.”, Inage said after her race.

–“We had seen the old map and in combination with snow we were guessing a real challenge. And I was the only one who literally “flew through” it with a good flow without any major hesitation, maybe because I had a chinese red bull before race. And I was able to really enjoy this snow stage. Thats my first PWT win and I’m thinking to retire – Nah, I’m kidding.”, Hubacek commented.

Results

Maps:

The tour will conclude tomorrow in the Temple of Heaven park area.

Dinghai Bay Park set the stage for the 2nd stage of PWT December Tour. The courses were divided in three parts with a steep and stairy beginning, tricky middle part, and flat and fast ending. It was Czech runners Daniel Vandas and Jana Peterova, who scored the fastest times of the day. Both of them had quite a dominant performance over the others with clear win margins.

Results

–“I’m really happy with my performance today! I knew I had a chance against Yannick in this kind of terrain. I enjoy uphill running combined with technical orienteering, which was exactly what today’s competition offered. I felt good and managed to find a good flow throughout the whole race. I also had enough power in the last flat part of the course for a final push”, commented men’s winner Daniel Vandas.

–“It was a very challenging sprint course with a combination of the Dinghai Greenway, parks, and a very steep forest. It was essential to control my running speed to avoid missing the detailed park terrain on the map and find the best route choices”, said women’s 4th Tsz Ying Yu.

Photos

Maps:

The first stage of the PWT December Tour took place in San Mao Cultural Village in Zhoushan. It was varying courses which demanded both fast running and accurate navigation between different sections.

In the women, Jana Peterova (CZE) was way ahead of anyone else. Lone Brochmann (NOR) was as clear runner-up, before Oleksandra Parkhomenko (UKR) and Leung Ka Ki (HKG) who shared the third place.

In the men, it was tight fight between Yannick Michiels (BEL) and Daniel Vandas (CZE), who in the end had only 13 seconds between them. It seemed they were running quite equally through the race but a mistake in the latter part by Daniel made the final difference. Jonas Hubacek (CZE) rounded up the Top 3.

1. Jana Peterova (CZE) 17.01
2. Lone Brochmann (NOR) 18.44
3. Oleksandra Parkhomenko (UKR) 20.23
3. Leung Ka Ki (HKG) 20.23

1. Yannick Michiels (BEL) 15.45
2. Daniel Vandas (CZE) 15.58
3. Jonas Hubacek (CZE) 16.15

-“Today we ran the first PWT race in a very nice small San Mao village. I enjoyed the course, because it wasn’t technically hard but also it wasn’t too easy, so I would say cool sprint for the first race of this December’s PWT. I also liked todays weather because the sun was shining and temperature was perfect for me for running a sprint. I didn’t manage to stay “in the map” all the race, I was sometimes behind, so my race was not so fluent as I’d like, and I also took some worse routechoices I guess. On the other hand I didn’t do any bigger mistake or bigger hesitation, so I cannot be unsatisfied. I definitely look forward to race again tomorrow, I am curious how I can handle the hills which are expected in tomorrows race.”, commented Peterova after her dominant performance.

–“Due to the many controls and short legs I struggled to get into a smooth flow. There was not much time to prepare the few longer legs and I felt I was always a bit behind with my orienteering. The course and terrain was very varied and I was anyway happy to take the win today!”, said Michiels after his winning race.

Results

Photos

Maps:

PWT Academy and Learnjoy organized an event with three competitions in Xi’an on 13-16th November.

The event offered varying venues and terrains set around Xi’an. The results and maps are below.

Day 1:

Day 2:

Day 3:

PWT Academy and Learnjoy are organizing two orienteering tours in China late 2025.

First round of events will take place in Xi’an / Shanxi on 13-16th November, and the second round of events in Dinghai and Beijing on 6-14th December 2025. More details below.

Second round program:

Entries are open. More information and send your application to: info@parkworldtour.org

Supported by PWT, the Guangdong Historical Road Orienteering Competition took place in Macau over the weekend.

The local runners were joined by some international athletes in two sprint races. The first one was a traditional event, while the second one was a “free order” sprint.

First race results and map:

Second race results and map:

Hana Orienteering is organizing the trip, flying from Wien.

The final race of the PWT Asia “New Year” Tour took place in Ningbo University area today. Tomáš Křivda (CZE) completed his hat trick taking the third win in as many races. Women’s class saw a new winner as Hinako Inage (JPN) was the fastest. The podium was completed by Yannick Michiels (BEL) and Mihaly Ormay (HUN) together with Jana Pekarova (CZE) and Lone Brochmann (NOR).

RESULTS and MAP:

PWT wishes all the orienteering family a succesful new year 2025! More PWT activities are already planned for 2025 – see you there.

The first stage (WRE) was run in Ma’ao Village in Zhoushan. Both elite wins went to Czech as Jana Pekarova and Tomáš Křivda were the fastest. Second places were taken by Shuangyan Hao (CHI) and Yannick Michiels (BEL), with Aniko Koren (HUN) and Øystein Kvaal Østerbø (NOR) becoming third.

RESULTS and MAP

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The second stage (WRE) took place in Dinghai Ancient City in Zoushan. Tomáš Křivda (CZE) was again the fastest man with Shuangyan Hao (CHI) stepping up to take the win among women. Aniko Koren (HUN) also took a step up by taking the second place before Lone Brochmann (NOR). In the men, Yannick Michiels (BEL) took another second place before Xiaoming Liu (CHI).

RESULTS and MAP