SILVA O´CAMP LIVE

21.-28.7. 2024

NEWS

2023 photos are uploaded

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Silva cup results

Results from E1E2 Overall Results

CZE

60

ESP

36

IRL

21

ISR

25

POL

44

BUL

20

TUR

14

Silva O´Camp

Every summer more than 170 young orienteers meet at the biggest trainign camp organised in the Czech Republic – Silva O‘ Camp at Vidnava in northern Moravia. The name for the camp was used for the first time in 1998, however the tradion of summer training camps organised by orienteers from the WOC 2008 host city Olomouc spans across much longer period.  Since the very beginning the camp the organisers have promoted and realised the idea of an orienteering camp for all young people interested in the sport. For this reason they decided to work with rather unusual large age spectrum of the participants – group of children aged between 8 to 20 years of age.

In 2003 the camp welcomed a group of orienteers from a distant and exotic country – a group of students from China. In 2006 the internationality of the camp was even bigger and thus you could hear, for example, such languages as Hebrew, Chinese, Swedish, Hungarian or Slovenian spoken in the camp. However, the official language, apart from Czech, is, and always will be, English.

These are the main and most important aspects on which the profile of the camp was built.  The camp itself is situated in the middle of one of the most beautiful orienteering terrain in the Czech Republic. In recent past there were several times organised the Czech National Championships as well as multi-day international events.

However, orienteering training is by far not the only activity at the camp. The organisers try to find good balance between running and other sport activities, which inseparably belong to holidays and young people. Fun and Entertainment In the evenings the participants of the camp meet to have fun and enjoy themselves. Every evening there’s an exciting menu ready for them – discotheques, meetings with Czech National Team runners, or the famous ‚Miss Vidnava‘ contest.

The team of the camp leaders is based on volunteers with great sense of humor and love for the job they are doing, none of which they lose despite the enormous responsibility they have. The optimum number of two leaders per team is a guarantee that everyone of the children will be taken care of with all the needs they may have.

SILVA O´CAMP 2022

DAY 1

Silva O´camp starts again after a year and day by day report is here as well. The morning arrival of the participants was one of the most complicated in history – teams from Spain, Israel, Poland, Turkey, Bulgaria, Ireland and of course the Czech Republic come to end of the world – Velká Kraš, Vidnava. Of course we managed everything, and so after lunch we had our opening training session – Score-O, which took place in a nice, newly mapped part of the forest north of the camp. In the evening there was an grand opening ceremony and the first disco of the camp.

DAY 2

The second day of the camp was focused on training. In the morning as well as after lunch we had technically challenging terrains. For logistical reasons, we split the teams in half and change the training sessions. First training was short loops and second training was technical snake in the rocky terrain directly above the camp. Apart from the training sessions themselves, the social side of the camp was also important today, because in the afternoon only our partner Oland visited us, who, apart from a stand with OB clothing, brought the long-awaited SILVA O’CAMP OFICIAL 2023 jerseys. In the evening, the traditional Vidnava TIOMILA race was on the schedule.

DAY 3

Today was the first competition day. The races started with a stage with a event centre at the nearby football field in Velká Krás. The course thoroughly tested the experience gained from the first two days, and the early bedtimes and morning warm-ups were reflected in the results. In the afternoon we had two training sessions – the line and a supersprint competition on a special map with scale 1:2000, what we call the contour gym. After dinner there as famous Superpuncher. Qualifying was done in three heats with 16 competitors qualifying for the finals. The race was split by a sudden rain, so we have to wait until tomorrow for the final, which will be a knock-out supersprint race.

DAY 4

Today we woke up to a rainy morning, and even though as orienteers we are not made of sugar, due to a very unfavourable forecast we changed our program. So we spent the morning with non-orienteering activities. Each nationality had a different concept of, „free morning“. In the camp there were various competitions, fairy tales and a show of national dances. In the afternoon, the sun finally shone on. And so we went back to orienteering. There were two training sessions, the younger kids did a memory run and the bigger ones did a training session with a top premium in the most technical part of the forest, the so-called heart of the forest. After dinner there was a delayed superpuncher final.

DAY 5

Another day on Vidnava is over and we are back with our daily news. In the morning there were one-man relay competition – a simulation of the first leg of the relay – mass start, forked courses and map exchange instead of handover. After lunch the second leg of the race was on the schedule. A difficult city sprint in Vidnava made the fight for the overall ranking much more dramatic. In the evening, campfires lit up the night sky, and we enjoy roasted sausages made by our own.

DAY 6

Today we woke up to rain again. Although the forecast did not look as threatening as on Wednesday, we decided to make another organizational change. We skipped the distant training called there and theback again and instead ran a forest sprint above the camp. After lunch it cleared up again and the sun warmed us up for the afternoon triathlon. A start at the pool, then a run to the camp and a short cycling element at the end, that’s how you could sum up the Vidnav triathlon in a nutshell. After dark, the campers changed back into their running gear and took off for the night race. For the first time in the history of the camp, the race was run as a mass start, so all the runnerscould feel the spirit of real Tiomila relay.

DAY 7

Today was the final of the 3 stage competition of the Silva Cup 2023. A challenging short course shuffled the overall standings and competitors from 3 countries appeared on the stage. In the afternoon, the famous Vidnava Olympics was on the schedule. The grand opening ceremony this year included performances by international groups in addition to the traditional welcome by the Olympic Committee President. A colourful cultural programme enriched the soul of all the participants who went on to participate in 10 Olympic events. In the evening, the awards ceremony was held, which smoothly turned into this year’s last disco.

DAY 8

Last training, lunch and the way back home…. all the hustle and bustle…we didn’t even have time for a proper article:) So again next year, hoooraaaay