Discussion: 159 Orienteering competitions in one year!

Today I spoke with a colleague who told me that he has competed in 159 orienteering events this year. I think that is suspicious for an entry in the Guniess Book of Records. It isn't?

My record is 66 races in one year. Where is your record?

As of today I'm at 78 events. But I include trainings and course vetting runs in my tally.

72 for me (all competitions) including spending the summer in Europe, back in 1991. In 2004 I managed 71 without leaving the USA. Over the past 40 years, I've been averaging over 39 races per year.

Marten. Is your friend expecting to keep that pace and reach 192 O events in 2022 by the end of the year? One more event per week and you colleague could reach 200 for the year. Give him a push from all of us.

With events four nights a week for half the year (and a few people who do all of them), I think that there would be people in the Melbourne park-street scene who would be in this sort of range.

Looks like 201 is the Melbourne record (for a year running from October to September): https://www.vicorienteering.asn.au/go-orienteering.... (This doesn't include forest events, although I don't think the person who got 201 does any).

He won again this year but I think it was around the 140-150 mark.

Tragic:-))

My good friend Richard Zeiner-Gundersen started orienteering very late, after realizing golf took too much time for too little physical benefit.
In 2019 (i.e. last year before Covid) he amassed 204 (or 205?) starts in official events (i.e. races with an online invitation, proper electronic punching and published results list), he had to travel internationally quite a bit, particularly over the Oslo winter, to manage this.
My personal norm used to be 75-80, but I hit 105 in 2019 when we spent half of November on the orienteering sail cruise from Panama to Jamaica. :-)

@terje, an orienteering sail cruise?

A few years ago I reached 60 forest events in a year. I vowed I would never do it again. There is so much else in life to experience. I organised 6 events in that season. That is the more useful achievement.

@brian and anyone else interested: Look at pwt.no for orienteering-specific travel. One year from now they'll have another Caribbean cruise with O events every day.

Yes, but do they count as orienteering events (and new countries)? :-)

There's no central authority as to what "counts". Everyone is free to make their own personal decision on that.

They have published start and result lists, with winsplits and SportIdent timing, so they definitely count!

@TIL: I agree re the number of events organized: I've been up to around 10 in a single year, most of them as the single organizer. This year I'll probably end up with 8 or 9, with 4 or 5 pretty much solo efforts.

Particularly proud of the 8 year streak for Svabergsprinten, a race I organize on the granite seaside slabs around our summer house in Hvaler. There I started by creating a sprint-O map of the entire island (10+ square km, started in 2012), then hosting a number of events there every year.

I believe one or two of you ran the VIP/Media race during WOC 2019? That was me re-using the course from Svabergsprinten. :-)

Unique control placement on that course: Under boulder cluster! Quite a few runners had problems here before they actually checked the description...