Livelox Pick of the Week; #4

The competition season in the Northern Hemisphere is really heating up!

Let's take a look at the most delicious highlights from the week of April 8th to April 14th, 2024.

With so many events happening, it's becoming increasingly difficult to single out just one. When choosing which events to focus on, I'm guided by the excitement of the distance I'm most eager to run.

In today's edition of the column "Choice of the Week," I'll be highlighting three such events at once.

1. Swedish Night Orienteering Championship organised by Ärla IF offers intricate terrain, featuring diverse vegetation and, most importantly, minimal trails. It's a true test of wilderness navigation skills.

2. The first day of the WRE level competition in Halden, Norway, was excellent (Halden O-Meeting). Organized by Halden SK one of the world's strongest clubs with a rich tradition in orienteering.

Their middle distance on Saturday April 13 was truly exceptional! The course planning was top-notch, receiving from me a perfect 10 out of 10 rating for its professionalism. I highly recommend watching it

Long-distance race on Sunday is also impressive. It follows all the conventions of the genre. You can even watch Serhii Kisiev's head camera recording to get a glimpse of the open pine forest from this map. It's truly a pleasure to run there

By the way, Serhii is an orienteer from Ukraine who now resides in Norway. He runs a fantastic channel with numerous professionally-made videos showcasing his training sessions and competitions. The videos feature diverse terrain and serve as a valuable resource for navigation training in Scandinavia. Serhii's website

3. For those seeking something extraordinary.

Just last night, I thought my column would only feature the first two competitions, but then I stumbled upon maps from smaller club-level competitions in France organised by Balisse 63.

And one map simply couldn't be left out of my digest! It's a dream terrain to navigate!!!

The courses weren't categorized by age, only by difficulty, with the toughest being the Black (Noir) course. Just Look how people spent many minutes searching for controls on challenging volcanic terrain. This is a place where you definitely don't want your feet to get ahead of your head.