Rankings

The new year is a good opportunity to look back to last years rankings. We didn’t take any of the series to serious:

World ranking (highest rank 2025):
Sprint:
Jakob: 1757
Steffen: 1349
Forrest:
Jakob: 1413
Steffen: 1152

National ranking:
Jakob: Did not compete
Steffen: 40. (M40) (run only one ranking event)

German sprint series:
Jakob: 3. (M19)
Steffen: 17. (M19)

Rhein-Main-Ranking:
Jakob: 2. (M19)
Steffen: 5. (M19)

Regional ranking Baden-Württemberg:
Jakob: 3. (M19)
Steffen: 7. (M19) (had only 4/6 counting events)

Bavarian Forest 5 Days 2025

2025 was the 4th edition of the Bavarian Forest 5 Days, organised by Peter and his team. I missed 2023 but have been on all other editions. With nearly 900 competitors from 29 countries it has become a international event.
This year the first two stages took place in the Czech Republic. I struggled little with the map, as it was a little unusual style for me. The map wasn’t bad, I just needed some time to get along with it. Map was a nice hilly forest with less stones than the German part.
Next two days were in the same German forest than last year. More stones and a little more green makes it a different challenge.I was more used to the map maker and course setter, so I was more satisfied with my orienteering.
Final days was a sprint in Grafenau. Not my favorite discipline. I made a stupid ~1 min error that costs me two places at the stages and one at the overall ranking.
Except of day 2, I managed a top 10 at all days and in the overall ranking. You can find results and pictures at BF5D homepage and maps in Livelox. Next year the vent will happen from 1st to 5th August in a new area arround Bad Weissenstadt. Earlier that year (18th to 19th April 2026) you can have a weekend of City Races at the Munich-O-Fest organised by the same team.

Day 3 Photo point (pic. Mike McDonnald)
Final sprint (pic. Lukas Faltejsek)

Rats Run Kupferzell

Stronger – Faster – Harder

Last Sunday we went a little bit off topic and went together with Paul to a regional obstacle course race. The races was part of south German based series of events called Rats Run. The events normally consists of a lot of mud and trails, so are very suitable for orienteers. As our decision to start was short term, we had started in the last start group. This means there were some obstacles that were blocked with early runners, so that you had to fight to pass through. But we make it all to the finish. No one makes a individual podium but we finished 3rd with the team. For Jakob and me it was the 4th team podium, we different teammates. In Kupferzell we won 2019, finished 2nd in 2023 and 3rd this year. Last year we finished 2nd in Hintersteinenberg. You can find plenty of pictures on the series web page. But I din´t spot any of our team on it.

3rd place trophy

Taunus-Cup 2025

The 2025 Taunus-Cup was our season start. The cup consists of 3 individual races and a final sprint relay at one weekend. Start was Saturday with a middle distance. I hit my knee there mid course and was a little handicapend for the rest of the weekend.
After the middle distance the weekend changed to urban events. Saturday evening we had a night sprint on a ruined castle. 1:1000 scale makes everything coming quite fast. Sunday morning shows an individual sprint with nice route choices and some climb. Afterwards there was a 3 person sprint relay. The relay consist of a lot of forest and climb up to the castle, so it was a very demand last race. Jakob finished 2nd in m19, only beaten by New Zealand’s international Toby Scott and I finished 7th in M19.

Night Sprint

18. Rammert Run

Mid November the 18th edition of the now traditional training event Rammert Run took place. It´s an 3 h Score on a topographic map. Participants are mostly from outside the orienteering community. For me it was the 3rd time at the Rammert Run. I ran it first time in 2022 were I won the race together with Jakob. Last year we hosted the race as there is now a Gentlemans agreement that the winner will host next years edition. Jakob had already run it several times before with another partner.
This year the race took place in eastern are of the Rammert. Jakob and I tried to have not too much pressure as we both said we don´t want to win this year. Even I would say we both have know that this isn’t really true. Planing is on that kind of maps isn’t always easy, so we didn’t start with complete plan. At the beginning there were two passages with hard running that slows us down. But we were still good in time at control 30 which was our first target to plan further. We then were discussing our route on the run. That part of the forest. went faster so we were able to add some controls on the go.The last part we need to go a little faster but this was OK as it was mostly downhill. We managed to take 21 controls and ensured the victory. You can find the map in our map archive.

The Trophy

Hungária Kupa

Hungária Kupa 2024 takes place in the Vértes hills around Csákbéreny. A area I already visited for the Hungária Kupa 2000 and the WMOC 2021. Both events I really enjoyed. It also acts as spectator race for the European Orienteering Championship.
The event started with an prologue in semi open former mining area. Lot of controls forced you to focus on your map all time. The day was super hot that means only 5 people finished the longest course. The other five days had 4 middle and one long distance race. We run in the middle qualification, the middle final, long distance area and two maps close to the middle qualification area. So you could have a good feeling for the EOC races. Only the relay forest were skipped as Hungária Kupa had it last event in the morning before the EOC relay. We had some of the hottest days in Hungary during the races, so running in the semi open areas was quite hard. Surprisingly I was able to finish in the top 10 of M40 in the overall result. You can find the results on the Hungária Kupa Homepage.

Trophies
Day 1-3 arena