MTBO Event Advising Clinic held in Bulgaria

The Popovo Cup, including the first MTB Orienteering WRE competitions in Bulgaria, were held from September 17 – 19 2021. The event was organised by the club Variant 5, the appointed organisers of the CX80 MTBO World Cup Final and World Masters MTB Orienteering Championships next year. The competitions in long distance and sprint distance, held in the Popovo region of Bulgaria, hosted around 200 participants in age classes from 12 to 60+. This marks the entry of Bulgarian elite riders in the World Ranking list for MTB Orienteering.

The 3 day competition was an excellent opportunity to organise a workshop in the area of mapping, course planning and organisational tips for MTBO high-level competitions. This was reinforced by fieldwork in the areas of mapping and safety in course planning, plus a set of group assignments involving time management and the organisational planning, arena design, quarantine selection and course planning for a WRE and the discussion of real-life jury cases. Following the suggestion of the MTBO Commission, the pre-planned workshop was developed into an EA Clinic for those who fulfilled the requirements.

The Clinic was led by Nermin Fenmen (GBR) who was the Event Adviser for the WRE competitions in  the Popovo Cup and is SEA for the CX80 MTBO World Cup Final and World Masters MTB Orienteering Championships to be held in 2022.

The clinic participants included twelve experienced organisers among them Dobromir Dobrev, the Head of the MTBO Commission within the Bulgarian Orienteering Federation, Dian Bonev an experienced mapper and the mapper for the coming major events in 2022 and Ivan Sirakov, a Bulgarian national team elite foot orienteer.  Two Turkish national team elite MTB orienteers and an experienced coach from Estonia, Mart Pais also took part in the clinic.