The period of uncertainty is now behind us, and the locations for all five stages have been confirmed. The final two stages, originally planned for Rossbeigh and Muckross, will now take place on Crohane Mountain, widely regarded as one of Ireland’s best orienteering terrains. It is no coincidence that this was the very area selected for the World Cup in 1998. Its intricate and demanding slopes in open mountain terrain will provide an excellent technical challenge. All five stages will be held in classic Irish open mountain terrain, and we will do our best to give each of them its own unique character.

As for the Rossbeigh and Muckross forests, smaller races have been organized there in the past, but because of the size of OOcup, it has ultimately been decided, on environmental grounds, to relocate these races to less sensitive areas. A great deal of work has been done by our local partners to secure permissions, which is highly appreciated, even though some changes ultimately proved necessary. As we wrote in a previous news item, the stages may lose something in diversity, but they will gain much more in technical difficulty.

In a few days time we’ll start mapping the Crohane area, so you will be served fresh new maps!

Last but not least, Kerry Orienteers will organize local races immediately before and after the five stages. On July 25, you can try indoor/outdoor 3D orienteering, and on July 31, a urban orienteering race will take place in the streets of Killarney. The entry limit for both races is 500 participants. Entries and more information are available at Kerry Festival of Orienteering. Welcome!

Regarding the Rossbeigh dunes stage, it is at this moment uncertain whether permission on environmental grounds will be secured from the relevant Government Authority in Ireland. While we will continue to pursue the securing of the necessary authorisation, we will also work to have an alternative location prepared should it be required.

This means we will likely have to relocate the stage to the legendary Crohane mountain where World cup in 1998 took place. This area is very close to the Black lakes area where stages 1-3 will take place. With this change we will lose some diversity which dunes would bring, but OOcup will not get any less exciting, on the contrary we expect some challenging technical racing on the Crohane mountain!

You can now enter the OOcup/2026 at OrienteeringOnline!

For 75€ you can optionally(!) book a bus seat from Killarney to the Arenas. See the Invitation section for more.

We have decided to have late first start on the Stage 1. If you’re coming to Ireland on the day of Stage 1, you can also ask for an even later start in the Special comment column in OrienteeringOnline entries.

For some time now website is updated with information for the 2026 edition.

In response to several questions received via email, please note that we are still awaiting confirmation and final details concerning the optional bus transport.

Online entries will open in January.

We are just back from the first mapping round, where we mapped Black lakes area (around Kilgarvan wind farms) and Rossbeih sand dunes.

OOcup 2025 is now history. Big thanks to all of you who took part in this year’s edition. We hope that we delivered an event at least close to your expectations. I’m seriously proud of the team – a handful of youngsters (well, there were a few of the old wolves in the pack too) – who worked hard for five days, doing their best for the event to run smoothly and efficiently.

At the same time, despite all the tiredness, we all had some really good time together. Thank you guys, you are the best!

Big thanks also to our Italian partners Clizia and Renato and the local farmers in Slovenia and Italy who were very helpful.

Life is not always what we want it to be, so we should appreciate the good moments. We hope we brought you some of those.

Next year, OOcup will be held in Killarney, Ireland. If not earlier, we hope to see you there.

Good night,
Ivan

Stage 2 is now behind us. Too bad for the bad weather, but it seemed that many of you liked the stage anyway. That was nice to see. You were the very first ones to run in this terrain in orienteering competition. Thanks for being disciplined and letting the whole thing run smoothly. It was perhaps the most complicated OOcup stage so far, though finally everything seemed smooth and simple :).

One thing we would like to remind you. Please register your SI card if you retire on the course or when you finish the course normally but we have remote finish control. Stages last long time and our small team has to move everything after each stage. It is absolutely no fun to lose time waiting for people who are not actually in the forest. It takes not just time but also adds stress to us and the medical team, especially in the mountainous terrain. So, really, even if you have to do some extra meters when you really don’t feel like it, please do them and register you SI card after the race, you help us a lot with that.

Tomorrow something different, a combination of rocks and some easier forest parts in the beautiful setting of Laghi di Fusine. See you ;)!

Please note that you can buy OOcup O-shirts at ActiveSport shop!

Stage 1 is behind us, we hope you enjoyed it!

Unfortunately, not everything went smoothly—control number 95 was stolen during the event. We replaced it as quickly as possible, but some runners were unable to visit the control. As a result, we have voided the legs connected to control 95. Updated results, excluding this control, are now available on OrienteeringOnline.

The affected classes are: M20, M21A LONG, M35, W21E, M45, M50, and W45.

So, OOcup is here, registrations and training starting today at 14:00 in Sella Nevea.

You can also pick up your race bibs tomorrow at the race.

Photos will be published at our Facebook page after each stage.

Maps will be published on Livelox.

Results as always at OrienteeringOnline.

Links to Bulletin are here.

The Nordic Center Planica kindly asks all drivers to pay their parking fee before departing for Laghi di Fusine for Stages 3 & 4.
This will help avoid queues later on. Of course, you can also pay when leaving, but please be aware that there might be many people who will want to do the same.
Paying later or earlier does not change the duration of the ticket.

Stay tuned for possible latest info!

You can check your shuttle batch number for Stage 2 here. The number will also be printed on your start number, but many of you are coming straight to the Stage 2.

On the Italian 3 stages it will be possible to eat very close to the Arena. The owners kindly asked us to publish their menus for the day.

Hotel Canin (Stage 2)
Bar ai Sette Nani (Stages 3 and 4) not right at the Arena, but at the bus drop off

Start lists are now published. You can see them at OienteeringOnline.

OPEN classes start times Stage 2
OPEN classes runners will be designated a shuttle bus batch number and should stick to it, just like runners in other classes.

OPEN classes start times Stages 3 and 4
Open classes, as well as MW10 Shadowed and Beginners, have been assigned start times for these two stages. These times are provisional and intended solely for coordinating with the bus timetable. Runners in these classes should take the designated bus but will still have open starts (using start control) once they arrive.