Mountainbike-Orienteering

Mountain Bike Orienteering, short MBO, MTBO or Bike -O, is a combination of mountain biking ( Radbeherrschung ) and the orientation ( orienteering ) in unknown terrain dar.

History

The roots of this comparatively little-known sport to go to the 1950s back and lie in the beautiful cycle port or in radtouristischen Mehrkampf (combination of cycling with compass, map and additional objects ( tree provision, first aid, bike repair). Already in the early years can be international competitions. demonstrate the years of the still present character of the sport emerged and tasks of radtouristischen More struggle declined. also due to the Iron Curtain came it to different developments in both blocks. at the beginning of the 1990s, this changed. Benefiting from the advent of mountain bikes but also the needs of the athletes from the ski - orienteering after competitions during the summer months, there was a big boom this sport. Though not yet olympic, represents the MBO an emerging sport with very high performance character due to the double burden dar. with help of a map has to move the items entered in the map as quickly as possible with his bike athletes. In this case, each participant can choose his route between points free. The competitions are usually held in a wooded area. In addition to the physical condition, a high degree of concentration and a good sense of direction are required.

Expiration

One minute before the start of the participant receives a special orientation map to familiarize yourself with the surroundings. The cards are usually in scale 1:15,000.

There are various MBO variants:

Competitions

Having been in the years before sporadic international competitions took place (primarily in France ), there was the 1998 European Cup in MTBO. The first race was held on August 8, 1998 to be held in Jelenec ( in Nitra / Neutra, Slovakia ), organized by Ján durin. From 1999 to 2003, there was the so-called World Cup in MTBO, which replaced the European Cup. The very first World Cup race was organized on 12 October 1999 at Mieminger Plateau in Tyrol ( Austria ) from the three MTBO pioneers Bernhard Brustle, Martin Fürnkranz and Dr. Hermann Knoflach. Since 2002, the world championships are held (see also mountain bike orienteering world championships). Since 2004, every year there are World Championships and the World Cup was replaced by World Ranking Events ( WRE) 2004. 2010 World Cup was re-introduced, but there are still wres. From 2006 to 2009 annual European championships have been held, have since been held every two years. Since 2008 annual Junior World Championships will take place, and since 2010 also the seniors aged 40 and over ( "Masters " ) has its own annual World Cup.

In Germany, every year there are several national ranking races and a championship. This competition will be run according to MBO variants 1 and 2 ( see above). In Austria there is the Austria Cup, which usually consists of 6-8 runs.

Successful MTBO - athletes

The Austrian army athlete Michaela Gigon is five times World Champion in mountain bike orienteering (as after the World Cup 2010). The Australian Adrian Jackson won four gold medals so far in individual disciplines and the Swiss Christine Schaffner won four times on the long distance.