The World Championships in Orienteering on a mountain bike took place in the city of Olsztyn in the northern Warmia region. It was the first event of this kind ever held in Poland with the participation of five hundred racers from around the world. 
 
Danuta Isler reports
 
Orienteering is a sport that combines racing with navigation using a map and a compass. The competition is a timed race in which individual participants use a detailed  topographic map and a compass to navigate through diverse often wooded terrain and visit, in sequence, control points that are indicated on the map. In mountain bike orienteering bikes are usually not permitted to leave the path system and the major focus becomes route choice while navigating at bike speed.

About 500 people from around the world participated in the World Mountain Bike Orienteering Championships which took place in the forests near the locality of Olsztyn, north-eastern Poland. During the five day event the competitors were divided into 4 categories and in each category consisted of 4 competitions: long and middle distance, sprint and relay race.

The best among Polish participants turned out to be Maciej Gromadka from Warsaw has got bronze medal in middle distance in junior category and also silver medal jointly in relay race. It was a really good competition according to  Lech Trzpil from the organiser's office: 'The competitors seemed to be very satisfied with our contest. We had nice routes in the forest, no complaints. The weather was also good, it rained slighly only on one day. If we look at the results we can notice that between the first five distance was about one and a half minute so in my opinion the competition was very strong.'
 
Lasse Brun Peterson from Denmark is the new World Champion in sprint and relay race: 'This is my first World Champion title. Last year I was second and got the silver medal on the long distance but this year it's the first world medal title. It takes a year to get prepared and I prepared very well. It is not very easy. There are a lot of very good competitors from a lot of countries. We have a strong team in Denmark, they are some of the biggest rivals as well as the Russian team. There are a lot of good racers. '
 
Orienteering originated in Sweden in the late 19th century, as a military exercise. It soon grew to include a competitive sport for military officers, then for civilians. In Poland Mountain Bike Orienteering picked up only several years ago.