Orienteering tournament held in Azerbaijan

/By AzerNews/

By Laman Sadigova

Icherisheher and Galalti hosted the international tournament in orienteering within the project "Silk way of Orienteering" with the participation of about sixty representatives from Switzerland, Sweden, the U.S., Norway and Finland.

The tournament was dedicated to the first European Games in Baku in 2015.

Orienteering is a sport for everyone, for people of all ages and experience - a sport for the whole family. This sport remains very most popular nowadays. The development of orienteering in Azerbaijan is highly appreciated by the international community. The winner of the World Orienteering Jorgen Martensson from Norway said that it came as a big surprise to him and his colloquies when orienteering in Baku made a meteoric rise in terms of popularity.

The Norwegian champion also said that despite the language barrier he and his Azerbaijani colloquies have clearly understood each other thanks to the international standards of orienteering.

First of all, it concerns the most important attribute of orientation - a sports card. Over the last three years the Ukrainian expert - international cartographer Michael Pugach - prepared 15 maps in various regions of Azerbaijan. The latest maps "Old City" and "Shabran (Galaalti)"were the most highly appreciated by all participants of the race.

The second important component of the orientation is a computer technical support, course monitoring and judging the competition as a whole.

National experts of Azerbaijan were prepared by the Council FSOA, and it made possible for them to judge the competition.

Also, races were organized in Icherisheher (sprint up to 3 km) and Galaalti Shabran region (average distance up to 7.5 km).

The competition lasted two days and the first day of the race took place in Icherisheher. The athletes had to go a distance of 2.53 km in the category "A". In the category “B” the distance to cross was set at 1.76 km and 11 CP. In the category "C", participants compete over a stretch covering 1.4 km and 10 CS.

During the second day of the competition the race took place in the mountainous forest area of Galaalti.

In the category "A" the winner of the competition "Silk way of orienteering - Azerbaijan" who became a multiple champion, was Jorgen Martensson from Norway (56 years), the second place went to Ulrich Aeshilman from Switzerland (56 years), and the third place to Yurg- Werner Valchli ( Switzerland - 53 years).

In the category “B” places were distributed as follow: 1st place - Sweyn Jacobsen (Norway - 64 years), 2nd place - Are Eriksen (Norway - 62 years), 3rd place - Harry Laina (Finland - 63 years).

In the women category the first place went toIngeborg Gzhennestad (Norway - 56 years), the second - Palvi Annila (Finland - 55 years) and the third place went to Inger glans (Sweden - 66 years).

In the category "C" between men, the first place was attributed to Juhani Jokinen’s (Finland - 73 years), the second place went to Dist Asmul (Norway - 70 years) and the third to Sweyn Solerod (Norway - 77 years). The women in the same category seats were distributed as follow: 1st place - Britt Forsell Pirozzi (Sweden - 70 years), 2nd place Shaffert Edith Huber (Switzerland - 70 years), 3rd place - Sidsel Sandelien (Norway - 70 years).

The group of foreign athletes expressed readiness to promote orienteering in Azerbaijan.