This is somewhat of a coup, given that the centre of MTBO is solidly in Europe, and the reluctance of the Europe/Scandinavia dominated International Orienteering Federation to come down under. However Australia has good connections in the IOF - it has one of the vice-presidents, the chair of the event standards committee and a member on the MTBO committee. And it has a good track record of running international events, including the first world championship in traditional foot-orienteering outside Europe, which it ran in 1985. Interestingly, the most active centre of MTBO is in central Victoria, where those 1985 World Champs were run.
Although there hasn't been a world championship yet, a series of
World Cup events starts this year, and they will probably continue
to be run, with a points score to find winners, in the odd-numbered
years. Australia has already been allocated one or two World Cup
events. Watch this space!