Orienteering Ottawa is excited to be part of the Canadian Orienteering Festival 2023!
Ottawa O-Fest events will take place from Saturday August 5 to Monday August 7. The Canadian Championships will take place on the weekend of August 11 to 13, hosted by Ramblers OC and Accro-O Sport. In between the two weekends will be a number of orienteering activities to offer people a complete 10 day festival.
Ottawa O-Fest will have our signature events, a Middle and a Chase Start Long on Saturday and Sunday, and will be introducing a Knock Out Sprint on the holiday Monday.
The Chase Start
Whenever Ottawa O-Fest is not part of a championship event, we like to hold our Middle and Long events as a chase format. Here's how it works: We run a regular Middle event on the Saturday. We have a regular start list where start times are assigned such that participants on the same course do not start at the same time. We have all the regular age classes and all the regular courses.
On Sunday, for the Long event, we will have all the regular age classes and courses. The difference is the way the start is run. For the top "X" competitive participants on each course, the start list is created such that the winner of Saturday's Middle starts first, and each person thereafter starts behind the Middle winner, by the number of seconds that they were behind on Saturday. So if second place is 12 seconds behind the winner in the Middle, they will start 12 seconds later on Sunday. This means that the first person across the finish line of each course on Sunday is the winner of the combined Saturday-Sunday event.
The less competitive / more reccreational participants who aren't out to win will have the opportunity to start with one person every minute, to avoid huge gaps in the start list and a overly extended time period over which participants will be finishing the Sunday race.
The Knock Out Sprint is a relatively new event on the international scene and is now part of the World Championships. To give our national team experience at it so that it is not totally new for them at the World Champs, Team Canada officials have asked us to build it into the North American Championships that the Ottawa club is hosting in 2024. And to be able to do that, we are testing it out this year at Ottawa O-Fest.
BUT . . . our version of the Knock Out Sprint will not be only for the top level athletes. we want to create an event accessible to all participants - something that will be inviting and exciting for you! So please join us and try it out!!
2023-02-27
Registration is now open on Zone 4! Registration is for the entire Canadian Orienteering Festival 2023 - both the Canadian Championships hosts by Montreal Ramblers and Accro-O-Sport and the Ottawa O-Fest. There is a French option and an English option. Register by April 23 to get the best price breaks!
2023-02-16
We have updated our website to reflect plans for our 2023 Ottawa O-Fest. We look forward to sharing more information with you as we have more details on courses and such.
Why not?
We love the crazy sport of orienteering and want to share that love with you. What better way to do that than with a weekend of competition, food, and friends in one of the nicest times of the year in Ottawa?
That's why our volunteers put thousands of hours into hosting events throughout the year and the O-Fest weekend is no exception. It might be a larger event but we still do it because we love it.