The Swedish delegation of the IOF-International Orienteering Federation arrived in Italy and met the mayors of the host Municipalities together with PWT Italia in view of the competitions scheduled from 1 to 8 October
The organizational machine of the European Orienteering Championships is proceeding quickly, led by PWT Italia, which hosted the international delegation of the International Orienteering Federation, who came from Sweden with the CEO Henrik Eliasson to visit the locations where the competitions will take place from 1 to 8 October. For the first time in the peninsula, the Championships will be valid as World Cup finals, with the patronage of Sport e Salute, the Veneto Regional Council, the Municipalities of Verona, Vicenza and Soave and the Province of Vicenza.
A great team effort for the Championships, which will be broadcast live on TV in 10 countries, for an estimated total of 12 million spectators, and will be promoters of 2 million euros in satellite activities in the area deriving from the 14,000 tourist presences, in especially from the Scandinavian countries.
Verona will be the leading city by welcoming the Sprint distance challenges on 4 October to crown the continental champions. The meetings led to the decision to place the qualifying round, scheduled in the morning, in the Borgo Venezia university district, where students will be involved together with citizens, newbies and families to discover this fun discipline with activities still being defined. In the afternoon, however, the finals will be held in the streets of the historic center with departure and arrival in the magnificent Piazza Bra. Athletes will be able to use the “Consolini” Athletics Track as a meeting place and will have the opportunity to discover the local food and wine excellence at dedicated stands in the competition Arenas.
The event will therefore be among the first opportunities for connection between Verona and the Scandinavian public in view of the closing ceremony of the Olympics and the opening of the Paralympics of Milano Cortina 2026. The inspection was also sealed by the meeting between the Mayor Damiano Tommasi and the IOF delegation, which shares the same yellow-blue colors of the flag with the Venetian city.
The inspections also continued in Soave, accompanied by a meeting with the Mayor Matteo Pressi, where the spectacular Sprint Relay will take place on 6 October afternoon, which will decide the strongest mixed teams made up of men and women in front of the Scaliger Castle. Welcome from Deputy Mayor Matteo Celebron also in Vicenza, where the individual Sprint knock-out titles will be awarded on 8 October, with qualifications at Parco Querini and quarters, semifinals and finals concentrated in the Piazza dei Signori area.
“We carried out the inspections – declares the PWT Italia Team Manager Gabriele Viale – to identify the best location for the competition arenas from a technical and logistical point of view. In addition to giving maximum prestige to the beauties of the cities, our priority is to respect the needs of citizens, who we hope will be able to participate in the event, and to protect monumental assets. We have studied the positioning of the television crews, equipped with fixed and mobile cameras, and of the mixer areas for interviews with a large screen attached, which will allow you to better follow the races in addition to live streaming”.
The next appointment for the organization will be Sport Expo at the Verona Fair from 10 to 12 March, where it will be possible to test the discipline on the field thanks to the synergy with the charity partner Centri Giovanili Don Mazzi and the involvement of FISO Veneto and the association Orient Express Verona. The promotional path, on the other hand, will continue at the end of April on the occasion of the 1st stage of the World Cup in Norway, where PWT Italia will present the program at an international level.