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Why did you start practicing orienteering?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Because my partner trains orienteering a lot, so I had to, if I wanted to spend time with him! Another important reason is that I love being in nature and orienteering gives the opportunity to really be a part of the forest, in a much more natural way than if you\u2019d stick to trails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Can you tell us about an early memory of orienteering that you have?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Since I took a beginners course as late as 2018, I don\u2019t very early memories. I lived in Switzerland at that time, and my partner and I spent a holiday in Ticino just a few weeks after EOC was organised there, so we went training together on the EOC maps. Most of the trainings we ran together so he could help me out if I got lost, but one shorter training on a fixed course I tried alone. I got terribly lost and decided to just run uphill to the highest point of the map and start over from there\u2026 to find out that there was a wild boar waiting for me at the top! I got scared and ran away without checking my compass, so I had to start over with trying to find out where I was once I was sure I had gotten far enough away from the wild boar. An experience I\u2019ll never forget!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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What is special with orienteering?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
There are many special aspects about orienteering. Most of all, it is a great combination of a mental and physical challenge, requiring full focus throughout the whole race. I also really like that it brings you to special places, where you’d never come otherwise. Because we mainly run off-trail, using a map and compass, most people wouldn’t even know how to get there!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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What is your advice to children and youths when it comes to practice orienteering?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Dare to make mistakes! Everyone makes mistakes when learning orienteering, and making mistakes means that you are challenging yourself to run a difficult course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What are your dreams when it comes to orienteering?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Since it is not a very long time ago I started orienteering, I still need to limit my speed in the forest often in order to keep contact with the map. Therefore I am often much less tired after an orienteering race than I would be after a running race. My dream is to improve my forest orienteering skills enough to be able to get really tired physically without making big mistakes, that would be a great experience!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For World Orienteering Day 2022 we have four new Ambassadors. First out is Eef van Dongen from the Netherlands. Why did you start practicing orienteering? Because my partner trains orienteering a lot, so I had to, if I wanted to spend time with him! Another important reason is that I love being in nature and … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5606,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldorienteeringweek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldorienteeringweek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldorienteeringweek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldorienteeringweek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5606"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldorienteeringweek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5922"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/worldorienteeringweek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5959,"href":"https:\/\/worldorienteeringweek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922\/revisions\/5959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldorienteeringweek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldorienteeringweek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldorienteeringweek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}