The Israel Sport Orienteering Association is pleased to announce the 2012 February Festival, an O-Tour itinerary that includes 15 training sessions and 2 days of competition at the annual Israel Open Championship.

Israel is a small country with an amazing variety of terrain and vegetation. Orienteering and tourist destinations are all easily accessible within short driving distances. You will be fascinated by the geographic, historical and cultural diversity of Israel.

Discover a warm and welcoming Israeli orienteering community. Let us know you’re coming, and we’ll connect you with the locals and help you get to orienteering venues and events.

Click to learn more about training and travel in Israel
For inquiries and registration, contact Ziv at ISOA.
Email: Israel Sport Orienteering Association

The team: Pavel, Guy, Zef

Zef’s first blog report.

The Maccabiah Sports Committee has conditionally agreed to include orienteering — for the first time ever — at the 2013 Maccabiah Games in Israel. Final approval requires the ISOA to submit a list of 50 Jewish (non-Israeli) orienteering athletes by July 31, 2011.

The Maccabiah is an international Jewish athletic event, held every four years in Israel. At the 18th Maccabiah Games in 2009, over 9000 Jewish athletes from 51 countries competed in 31 sports events.

The ISOA is urgently seeking Jewish orienteers. If you are a Jewish orienteer, or have a friend who is, please contact Doron Kaynar, ISOA Maccabiah Coordinator:
ISOA – 19th Maccabiah Orienteering

We hope to find athletes who will participate in the upcoming Maccabiah, but no commitment is required when contacting us. At this point, we only need basic information (name, country, age, gender, email and phone number).

Please spread this message in the orienteering community.

Eran Segal, winner of H21 at the 2011 Israel Open Championship (photo: Pavel Levitzky)

Maps are now available in RouteGadget for competitors to draw their routes:
http://www.nivut.org.il/splitsbrowser/RouteGadget/cgi-bin/reitti.pl
Splits can also be viewed through the RouteGadget.

Links to photos:
https://picasaweb.google.com/Amri.nivut/OCGimal250211IsraelOpen1#
https://picasaweb.google.com/Amri.nivut/OCSrigim260211IsraelOpen2#
http://www.nivut.org.il/scripts/show-gallery.asp?id=8

Splits browser: http://www.nivut.org.il/splitsbrowser/?data=11feb25

Photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/Amri.nivut/OCGimal250211IsraelOpen1#

Results are in an Excel file. The file has 4 tabs: Total shows the championship winners, based on the combined results from Park Golda and Nitzana. Separate meet results are presented in the Nitzana, Shivta and Golda tabs.

The event organizers apologize for the delay in publishing results.

Start times by Name: http://www.nivut.org.il/info/files/stratioc.html

Start times by Category: http://www.nivut.org.il/info/files/stratiocbyclass.html

Competition Day 2 of the Israel Open is an IOF World World Ranking Event (WRE). The WRE competition will use a new map, produced by Petr Matula of the Czech Republic. The map is located within Park Britannia, a forest and recreation area southwest of Jerusalem. The terrain combines pine and cypress forest with semi-open land that has both natural woods and uncultivated fields. The topography is gentle, with just 125 meters difference between the highest and lowest points on the map. The region is characterized by numerous features, particularly boulders, stone walls, terraces, and rock faces. While not physically demanding, the courses present extreme orienteering challenges.

Israel Open Championship - Day 2 venue - Sarigim

Day 2 courses planners are Noam Ravid and Alexei Marchenko. Event adviser is Pavel Levitsky.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the event, which is held in memory of Hagar Palmach, a teenager who died in a hiking accident while a student at the Sde Boker high school in 2001. In addition to orienteering, participants will enjoy visits to geological and historical sites, swimming, biking and other sporting activities, and lots of social and fun events.

The Desert Championship is a prelude to the major event of the Israel orienteering season, the Israel Open Championship, which will be held on February 25-26 in the Judaean foothills, southwest of Jerusalem. Over 50 competitors from various European countries will be participanting in this year’s event.

See details in the lastest bulletin (PDF): February O Festival 2011 – Bulletin 2.

This bulletin contains important information about the events, including registration instructions, schedules, driving maps to venues, and valuable course setters’ notes for each of the two days of the Israel Championship.