Summertime in the City

Friday, 20th June was a special day for orienteering in Luxembourg: our club, now named simply Luxembourg Orienteering, welcomed 274 runners from 24 countries (even from as far away as Australia) to our beautiful and hard-to-navigate city. The race that we organised was advertised as an "extended sprint", but we think we ended up giving most orienteers more of a test than that. The “complex route choices, steep climbs and narrow alleys” that had been promised in the invitation earned high praise from participants.

LuxO runners picked up 5 gold, 3 silver, and 4 bronze medals – congratulations! Have a look at the results , or check out the Livelox page to see the routes people took.

This event was truly a team effort, with around 25 club members involved as helpers on the day and contributing in the months leading up to it. President Jan masterminded things, and Sasha planned no less than 15 courses, all of which offered a challenge that was just right for the classes concerned. Ondra organised the work by our professional mapper, Thibaut, and Jonas was our controller - he had to run hard to check all 44 controls in the 90 minutes or so before the first start time. Special thanks, too, to those members who helped collect in the controls after the event - Gabi, next time, we’ll find you a screwdriver that works…  A heartfelt thank you to everyone who helped make it happen – we couldn't be prouder of our club!

Big thanks, too, to the Ville de Luxembourg for letting us organise a race in the city and for allowing us to use the foyer at the Salle Victor Hugo as our event base.  And also to the weather gods, for laying on a perfect sunny summer evening!

More photos here (mostly from the start, thanks to Irena).