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The first ever Mauritius 3 days Orienteering was concluded today with sprint distances in the SSR Botanical Gardens. The first stage (sprint) took place in Palmar Beach and the second in Domaine de Lagrave (middle). The event was organized in collaboration between Orienteering M, Park World Tour, the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports & Recreation, and the Ministry of Education. The aim of PWT was to transfer as much knowledge as possible about organizing an orienteering event to OrienteeringM, and day by day, the locals took more and more responsibility on the key event features.

In total, there were 90 international participants and almost the same number of locals keen to try orienteering. Some of the locals were competing with the same courses as the M/W 21 classes, while for some it was “Fun & Experience” as they were introduced to orienteering for the first times.

Today’s elite class winners in the SSR Botanical Gardens were Yannick Michiels (BEL) and Megan Carter-Davies (GBR), who also won the overall competition. Megan ended up winning all the three stages. In the men’s class Yannick Michiels won also the first stage, while the second stage winner was Ben Mitchell (GBR).

Mauritius of course offered a lot more than just orienteering. The participants got to enjoy various kinds of nature trails, attractions, beaches, excellent local food, swimming and snorkeling in the ocean, as well as other activities offered by this beautiful country.

The plan is that the Mauritius 3 days Orienteering will continue to take place in the following years. If you missed it this time, the next opportunity likely awaits 2023.

You can find all the maps and results from the event site.

The first ever international orienteering event in Mauritius, the Mauritius 3 days Orienteering 2022, takes place on 17th to 20th November.

The event is organized in a collaboration between Orienteering M, Park World Tour, the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports & Recreation, and the Ministry of Education. The effort of all these parties has been vital to make the event happen. The event is supported by the International Orienteering Federation.

The work to bring an international orienteering event to Mauritius began already in 2019 from the contact between Park World Tour (PWT) and Mr. John Domah of Orienteering M. Since then, PWT has worked with Orienteering M to make the event possible. A series of webinars have been held to educate the local orienteering officials and a visit by the PWT president Jaroslav Kacmarcik and Project Manager Giulia Zenere took place a year ago. Orienteering mappers from Czech Republic have visited Mauritius to make high quality maps fit for orienteering. During the last year, the collaboration between the organizing parties has been intense, and we are glad to announce, that Mauritius is ready to host their first ever international orienteering event.

The event will include three different stages, which take place in Palmar Beach, Domaine de Lagrave, and SSR Botanical Garden Pamplemousses. We are happy and thankful to the local parties and officials in these event sites for the successful collaboration. We especially want to thank Mr. Gilbert Queland of Domaine de Lagrave Two of the stages will be sprint distance and one middle distance.

The event will be taken part by 90 international orienteers of different ages from 15 different countries, and almost the same amount of local Mauritian sports people and students who are keen to try out the noble sport of orienteering.

Among the international orienteers, invited by the PWT, several world elite athletes will take part. Among them, the Sprint Orienteering World Champion 2022 Megan Carter-Davis from Great Britain, and Sprint World Championship bronze medallist 2022, Yannick Michiels from Belgium. These highest top level orienteering athletes are excited to experience the beautiful country of Mauritius and the Mauritius 3 days Orienteering.

The Mauritius 3 days Orienteering is sponsored by Olympia Sports, Woolworths, and GoSport. We are thankful to all of them for supporting the event.

We further want to highlight the role of Orienteering M, Park World Tour, Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports & Recreation, and the Ministry of Education for making this event a reality. Let it be a successful one.

A warm welcome to Mauritius,
Orienteering M
Park World Tour
Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports & Recreation

We welcomed the World Champion Megan-Carter Davies and Ben Mitchell in Mauritius today. It was a long day out but we completed the checking of Domain de Lagrave and SSR Botanical Garden Pamplemousses. Tomorrow it will be time for press conference in Bagatelle.

Thanks for all the beautiful people of Mauritius that are involved in this event with passion!

1. Friday’s Stage 2 will start one (1) hour earlier than originally announced = all start times have been moved one hour earlier. New start times are on the web site: https://www.parkworldtour.org/?page_id=56

2. On Friday (stage 2), there will be a buffet lunch served in the competition center. The buffet includes, for example, local deer meat, chicken curry, vegetarian option, rice, lentil dahl, vegetables. The price is 500 MUR including a 500ml water. Pre booking is advised latest on Thursday – you can prebook by sending a message to giulia@parkworltour.org or in event center. There will also be a bar open.

3. There will be ‘some’ water (served or sold) on every stage, but please take also your own water with you as the weather will be hot. Take enough.

4. GPS-coordinates for the parking of all the stages (you can use google maps to navigate):

Stage 1 (Palmar Beach): https://goo.gl/maps/hLwksPLsPAaMghc37

Stage 2 (Domaine de Lagrave): https://goo.gl/maps/73SWCw3Kj9c7b4vV6

Stage 3 (SSR Botanical Garden, Pamplemousses): https://goo.gl/maps/WbtZZYJRi83K8vnVA

Event centers are right next to the parking.

Several elite runners are taking part in Mauritius 3 Days, among them, Sprint World Champion 2022 Megan Carter-Davies. The presentation of all the elite runners in this post.

Recently, Giulia – Project Manager of PWT Academy, visited Dev Balhara in India.

Dev, back in 2020, was the one contacting Park World Tour with the goal of introducing orienteering in his country. 

In 2022, PWT Academy, with the cooperation of IOF, organized an online seminar of 5 classes to introduce orienteering to 35 participants, mostly Physical Education teachers.

Some days ago, Giulia met Dev in person and started discussing practically about the possibility to introduce orienteering in the Indian school system, and to start thinking about an international event where orienteers from all over the world can run in this fascinating country.

It was a pleasure to present the 25 years Memory book of PWT to Dev, wishing for a long and bright cooperation.

We are pleased to announce that Yannick Michiels is joining us in Mauritus 3 days orienteering in November. Yannick has produced some great results this year, among them, bronze medal in WOC Sprint and 2nd Place in ASOM.

We would like to remind that the registration for Mauritius 3 days orienteering is still open.

Would you like to experience a whole new country for orienteering (and maybe also spend a nice holiday at the same time)? Join us in Mauritius in November. More info here: Mauritius 3 days.

During the year, PWT has handed a number of vouchers for elite athletes. The winners of ASOM as well as the individual sprint World Champions from Denmark have been awarded with vouchers including Mauritius 3-days with full board.

World Champion Megan Carter-Davies is already looking forward to joining the Mauritius 3-days orienteering. The other voucher winners are Simona Aebersold, Kasper Fosser, and Matthias Kyburz. If a voucher winner would choose to not take part in Mauritius, the voucher will be handed on to another elite runner chosen by PWT.

While the vouchers include Mauritius 3-days with full board, we would also like to help the athletes with their flights. Here, we are calling for your support.

You can support, for example, by buying the PWT 25-years anniversary book ‘Made for loving it’.

Another option is a sponsorship agreement with PWT. For this, please contact: jkpwt@hotmail.com and giulia@parkworldtour.org.

PWT and PWT Academy was responsible for organizing the O-Ringen Academy 2022, arranged in conjunction with O-Ringen in Uppsala, Sweden, between the 22nd of July and the 31st of July. The O-Ringen Academy is a place for orienteering runners from different countries and on different levels, including beginners, to meet and exchange their experience and learn new. Last time when the O-Ringen Academy was arranged, in 2019, 45 orienteers from 13 countries participated.
This year, there were orienteers from Argentina, Colombia, Egypt, Hong Kong, Japan, North Macedonia, Slovenia, and Turkey.

The Academy activities consisted of several seminars related to orienteering, held by the PWT and also visiting speakers like Albin Ridefelt. The seminars included topics such as organizing an international orienteering event, map drawing, how to involve more the kids in the schools through orienteering, etc. The Academy participants also joined the Global Development Conference organized by the IOF, which included many interesting workshops about different aspect of orienteering.

During the days, the Academy participants obviously took part in the O-Ringen races while also presenting orienteering maps and activities from their own countries in the Academy tent. The evenings were filled with race analysis, shared dinners, and nice time together. The participants could also enjoy visits of some special quests: Peo Bengtsson shared the memories of his life in orienteering (6046 orienteering races so far!) and how O-Ringen started; and Per Ola Olsson presented how to start to draw an orienteering map.

In the tent, there was also the possibility to buy the PWT 25 years memory book as well as the new Memories of the Winners book, which includes stories from all the WOCs since 1966. The tent was also frequently visited by several world champions and elite orienteers, both current and more experienced ones.

Thank you for all the participants. May our paths merge again soon in the future of Orienteering.

ps. Don’t forget Mauritius 3-days Orienteering in November. Registrations are still open!