Michael Wood has been appointed to the Marathon-Orienteering Committee of the International Orienteering Federation.
Moves for proper international governance of long-distance forms of mapsport have been fairly unsatisfactory. The IOF has expressed a claim for jurisdiction over all forms of endurance orienteering including mountain marathons and rogaining, but it has taken only a half-hearted interest in them. A previous "marathon-orienteering working group" seems to have fizzled out.
Meanwhile rogainers are engaged in a decade-long struggle to constitute an "International Rogaining Federation", set up in a fairly ad hoc way by a couple of the founders of rogaining, Rod and Neil Phillips. Even in Australia which has a majority of the world's rogainers, there is argument over the IRF, and the Australian Rogaining Association hasn't joined the IRF.
Michael is the International Officer of NZ's Rogaine Committee.
He instigated rogaines in the Hutt Valley in 1991,
was the initiator of the bid which NZ made to run the 4th World Rogaining Champs,
and believes that world championships in marathon-orienteering should alternate
between the rogaine and mountain marathon formats. The NZ Rogaine Committee has recently
sent this proposal off to the IOF and the organisers of the 5th World Rogaine Champs,
to be held next year in the Czech Republic.
Written by Michael Wood
and installed on 23 Oct 01