Discussion: 2021 US WOC Team Announced

The US Senior Team Review Panel, consisting of Peggy Dickison, Glen Tryson & Jeff Saeger, are pleased to announce this year’s team to compete at the World Orienteering Championships to be held in early July in the Czech Republic.

Head on over to the OrienteeringUSA website to read the full announcement.

Congratulations to the team! You have less than a month to get ready!

To save a click...

Men
AJ Riley – automatic selection
Joe Barrett – automatic selection
Eric Bone
Sergei Rhyzkov - declined [edit]
Greg Ahlswede – declined
Will Enger
1st alternate – Michael Laraia
2nd alternate – Thomas Laraia

Women
Angelica Riley – automatic selection
Sydney Fisher – automatic selection
Diana Aleksieva
Alexis Merka
(no alternates)

Sergei has declined.

Who knew this would be such an open ended process?
Orienteering USA 's National Program has three team levels - Elite, Performance and Development.
Who knew that not one, not two but four members of the team selected for WOC could get selected without being members of any of those National Team levels?
I know this is an unusual year but for sure I will be using this information to motivate some pretty good young orienteers in Florida that national team status could be within reach if we just kick it into gear a bit. I suggest that clubs in other parts of America do the same.

Absolutely! The Team Trials were open to all (who are US citizens), so we did get some non-Standing Team athletes who performed well. Those who go to WOC will join the national team.
Diana and Alex are on the Junior Team.

And I neglected, in my announcement, to mention the US athletes who earned personal starts. Unfortunately, all four have declined.: Ali Crocker and Tori Borish for family reasons, and Morten Jorgensen and Anton Salmonkyla because of injuries. We wish them all the best and hope to see them back next year.

Congrats to everyone on the team! I'm looking forward to competing in Czech Republic-

Does Sergei's decline mean that Michael now officially has a spot on the Team?

If Michael accepts it, yes. I haven't heard from him regarding his intentions.
So far, AJ, Joe, Eric, Syd, Angelica, and Alex are definitely going.

Definitely is pretty arbitrary in today's climate.

Final team: AJ Riley, Joe Barrett, Eric Bone, Will Enger, Thomas Laraia; Sydney Fisher, Angelica Riley, Diana Aleksieva, Alex Merka.
Best wishes to all!

Congrats to the athletes and thank you to Peggy for all your work making this possible!

Awesome. Best wishes for a great WOC experience!

Is that possibly a parent and child combination on the team? If so is that a first for one WOC.
Sorry if I'm off-base but I don't know these folks too well.
Canada has had several dads and kids participating at WOC but not at the same ones. Same with Australia, I believe.

It's entirely possible Natasha (mother) and Aston (son) Key would have been on the same WOC team last year if not for Covid. Aston made the "merit" team this year and would have gone if Australia was sending a team but Tash was injured and missed many selection races.

We didn't have enough selection races last year before everything was scrapped but both were top performers in the sprint weekend that was run before that happened.

Natasha and Aston were both in the 2018 team. Hasn't the US had such a combination before, too?

Oops, I only looked back to 2019 when neither was in the team and figured Aston was at JWOC prior to that but yeah it was the last combined WOC in 2018 so both made the sprint events though Aston only got to run a sprint Q that year and nothing else. Still both there though!

The US has previously had a mother and child on the same team, Pavlina and Victoria Brautigam, 2007-9. And I heard that there was a European country with such a combination sometime in the past.

And to address Gord’s other question: yes, Angelica and AJ are mother and son.

The race assignments as per the selection committee (Peggy, Jeff Saeger, Glen Tryson):
Men
Sprint: AJ, Will, Thomas
Sprint Relay: AJ, Joe
Middle: Eric, Joe, Thomas
Forest Relay: AJ, Eric, Will
Long: Joe

Women
Sprint: Angelica, Diana, Alex
Sprint Relay: Angelica, Alex
Middle: Syd, Angelica, Diana
Forest Relay: Syd, Angelica, Alex
Long: Syd, Diana

The order for the relays will be determined by Team Officials Dagmar Merkova &
Kevin Fisher, in consultation with the racing athletes. Substitutions will be made in case of injury or illness only.

TeamUSA is officially checked in and ready for competition!! Be sure to follow OrienteeringUSA over on Facebook to keep abreast of the latest WOC2021 news and updates!

Looking good!... Did you manage to ditch Will already??

Late flight arrival. I have it on good authority that Will has in fact arrived in Czechia....