The Orienteering World Cup in Lower Silesia: 30 April - 2 May, 2016
More than 200 world leading athletes will take part in The World Cup in orienteering. The competition will be held from 30 April to 2 May, 2016 in Wrocław, Trzebnica and Sobótka. Sprints will be showcased on the Big Island of Wrocław, middle-distance running (5-6.5 kilometre) in Sobótka, a city 30 kilometres away from Wrocław and sprint relay in Trzebnica (20 kilometres north of the host city of TWG 2017).
The International Orienteering Federation regards the competitions as the most important test before The World Games 2017, which will be hosted by Wrocław. Orienteering is one of the 27 official sports on the programme.
The World Cup in Lower Silesia will take place just before the European Championship that will be held three weeks later in Jesenik in the Czech Republic. As a result, Poland will host the best representatives of the "Green Sport", inter alia Daniel Hubmann and Tove Alexandersson (IWGA Athlete of the Month for February 2015). Daniel Hubmann form Switzerland is a two-time gold medallist at The World Games, the four-time world champion, the European champion. He won the overall classification of The World Cup four times. In addition, he was on the podium of the most important events more than forty times. The Swede, Tove Alexandersson, is the leader of the world ranking of The International Orienteering Federation. At the international competitions she won nearly twenty medals, including two at The World Games 2013 in Cali.
For the Polish athletes the World Cup will be an important part of their preparations for the TWG 2017. The result in the top ten will be success. The ranking of the leading hundred athletes in the world includes two Polish women and two Polish men, including Wojciech Kowalski - training in Silesia, Wrocław. His achievements include inter alia the world's junior vice-championship and the world's military vice-championship.
The World Cup is accompanied by the O-games, in which everyone can take part. We will prepare the routes of varying difficulty. In Scandinavia, where orienteering is very popular, even 5.000 people aged from 10 to over 70 years old take part in the events accompanying the professionals. “We hope that the viewers will try to run with the map,” says Wojciech Dwojak, the president of the Lower Silesia Foot Orienteering Association.