European Orienteering Championship

The current format of the European Championships consists of the following disciplines: sprint, middle distance ( Middle ), long distance ( Long ) and the relay of three participants. Competitions are held separately for men and women, there are no age restrictions. Only federations that are members of the international orienteering federation , which are considered by the international Olympic committee as countries of the European continent, can participate in the championship. Athletes from non-European countries, such as the United States, can take part in the European Championship, but outside the general classification.

Sprint, middle and long distances consist of two parts - qualification and final. All athletes by lot are divided into three races (three distances with similar parameters: length, number of CP , climb). The first 15-17 athletes from each qualification run will reach the final A, the rest will go to the final B. The European champion title will be awarded to the winner of the final A. In the sprint, the final and qualification can be held on different days or on the same day. Qualifications and finals for the middle and long distances are spread on different days to enable athletes to recover.

Each country in any discipline can exhibit no more than 6 athletes, not counting the current European champion. For example, if an athlete from Switzerland won the European Championship in the sprint, then Switzerland can put up 6 people in the women's sprint for the next European Championship plus the champion of the last championship. In the relay race, each team can put up two teams of three people each, but only the result of the team that takes the higher place counts. Incomplete or mixed teams are not allowed to participate in the relay.

Year	the date of the	Location
1962	September 22-23	Norway , Löthen
1964	September 26-27	Switzerland , Le Brasu
2000	June 30 - July 4	Ukraine , Truskavets
2002	September 25-30	Hungary , Sümeg
2004	July 10-17	Denmark , Roskilde
2006	May 7-14	Estonia , Otepää
2008	May 25 - June 1	Latvia , Ventspils
2010	May 27 - June 6	Bulgaria , Primorsko [1]
2012	May 14-20	Sweden , Falun / Mura / Orsa
2014	April 9-16	Portugal , Palmela
2016	July 25-31	Russia , Tula

After the International Federation of Sports Orienteering (IOF) was organized at the Congress in Copenhagen in 1961 , one of its main tasks was the unification of the requirements for sports cards , including their scale , and the systematization of conditional topographic signs. Therefore, one of the first to create a committee to prepare uniform international competition rules. At the next IOF Congress in 1963, the Charter of the Federation was approved in Leipzig , and the committee for the preparation of the rules was transformed into a technical commission ^[2] .

The first practical step of the new federation was the holding of official international competitions. The first official international orienteering competitions took place in September 1962 in Norway and had the status of the European Championship. Athletes from European countries came to this first European championship hosted by the small Norwegian town of Löthen ( Norwegian Løten ), and there was only one discipline in the competition program (now called long or classic distance ^[3] ). Sports cards were black and white photographic prints and had a scale of 1: 25,000. Men covered a distance of 16.5 kilometers with 13 control points, and women competed at a distance of 7.5 km from 7 CPs ^[4] . At the second European Championship, which took place in 1964, the Swiss town of Le Brassus ( French Le Brassus ), the relay race was included for the first time in the competition program.

European Championships can be considered the precursors of the World Championships. At the third IOF Congress, which took place in Bulgaria in 1965 , it was decided to rename the European Championship to the World Championship, although at that time only 11 countries were members of the IOF and they all represented the European continent ^[5] .

At the European Championship 2012, 387 athletes from 33 countries were announced. ^{[6] [7]}

Men

Women

Men

Women

Men

Women

Men

Women

• European Orienteering Championships, senior statistics 1962-2004 (inaccessible link) . Date of treatment February 5, 2009. Archived February 23, 2011.
• EOC 2008 Official site . Date of treatment February 5, 2009. Archived on August 28, 2011.
• Hungarian orienteers on the European Championships . Date of treatment February 5, 2009. Archived February 23, 2011.