A fantastic weekend of competition, challenge, and fun for mountain bikers, orienteers, and adventure racers of all abilities. Add in the rogaine on the Monday for more nav riding.  The 2025 NZ MTBO Championships will be hosted by Dunedin Orienteering and held in Central Otago over the weekend of 1st / 2nd February, with a non-championship MTBO Rogaine following on Monday 3rd February. The event is to be hosted by Central Otago Orienteers and Dunedin Orienteering 

• Morning Saturday 1 February  |  Sprint distance MTBO championships:  Alexandra 
• Afternoon Saturday 1 February  |  Middle distance MTBO championships:  Matangi Station .
• Sunday 2 February  |  Long distance MTBO championships:   Naseby Forest   
• Monday 3 February  |  Rogaine optional extra MTB nav fun, not a championship event 

We are delighted to confirm the 2023 NZ MTBO Champs will happen near Christchurch on 29 and 30 April! Planning is well underway, so stay tuned for more information through this website and the NZ MTBO facebook page!

Thank you for entering! We have been delighted with the late surge in entries, which whilst still below what we had originally hoped for, are still respectable enough and will see some great competition across many grades. 

Start lists are now up and can be found on the website here.

IF YOU HAVEN'T BEEN TO A MAJOR ORIENTEERING EVENT BEFORE, READ THIS

• ​This event has pre-allocated start times, which means you must start your race at the start time allocated to you in the Start Lists that are uploaded to this website.
• You should aim to be at the start area at least 10 minutes before your start time
• 4 minutes before your start time, you will get called up by an official, and enter the start area - this is a taped off area with 4 stages that you move through in sequence
• All of this is explained in detail in the bulletin, which can be downloaded from this website
• This will feel a bit more structured and formal compared to many club orienteering events, so hopefully this is useful for those of you who are new to a major event
• If you have any questions ask an official at the event 

Good luck!

Hi MTBOers! The event planning is going really well and boy do we have some great events lined up for you! The maps are looking great, courses are set and top quality, and the event team are primed and ready to put on two great days of racing for you!

All we have to hope for is some great weather, and to see a few more entries - numbers are sadly down this year, but we hope to get a few more in before entries close Sunday night. So please, get your entries in and make the event teams day by coming and enjoying the best MTBO event of the year!

We have had a few challenges in recent weeks in our preparation for the champs. We had mentioned in an earlier post that we had hoped to host the Sprint on a new map in Rotorua - the bad news is that this hasn't transpired and the location we had in mind proved not really to be suitable for a Sprint MTBO.

The good news however is that the Sprint WILL be going ahead, but on a previously used map, using the Puarenga Park/Scion dog walking area. We had used this for the Middle Distance event in 2019, however it is a quality area that will challenge competitors - especially as we have a really capable Planner/Controller combination with Grant Unkovich and Greg Flynn. We have now issued an embargo notice for this area, so please read up, and also check out the map from the previous event listed in the "2022 Champs" page of this website. 

We also had a bit of a wobble with the potential loss of access to our brand new Onepu map, due to a change in ownership of the Onepu Mtb Park and issues around insurance. Fortunately our ONZ Liability insurance proved invaluable for mitigating the concerns the new owner had, so we are very pleased to be going ahead with this event at that venue. Big thanks to the owner, Shane Le Prou, who has been super supportive and positive about our event!

All other planning is going full bore, and the team is working hard to finalize courses and everything else which will make this an awesome champs. If you haven't entered, please do ASAP, and also remind other friends to do the same! 

Fantastic news! We can confirm that a Sprint distance race will be included in the MTBO Champs programme, so a full suite of events with Middle and Sprint on the Saturday, and  Long on the Sunday is definitely taking place. 

The Sprint will be on a brand new map in Rotorua, with more details to come soon. We are especially pleased to have a great setter and controller combination on this event - Grant Unkovich and Greg Flynn bring heaps of experience, so we can expect a fantastic set of courses on a new map!

We are delighted to confirm that a 2022 NZ MTBO Champs will take place in and around Rotorua, hosted by Orienteering Bay of Plenty with support of Taupo Orienteering.

Details are still being worked through, but we can confirm a Long Distance event and Middle Distance event, with a Sprint event yet to be decided on. 

​More information will be available later in June, however for now please mark your diaries and put aside the 19 - 20 November 2022! 

​What an amazing variety of maps over the three days and a variety of ages participating. The amount of people coming together to attend the event from all over NZ means a lot to us, and really made the competition and event go well. Send us any comments or feedback, it really helps us. 

All the results are up and linked: https://www.mtbochamps.nz/results.html
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A big thank you to our organisers, event planners and controllers for the 2021​  NZ MTBO Champs:
Naseby long event  | 18 Apr 2021 -  Planner: Conal Boland-Bristow  and Controller: Matt Bixley
Chatto Creek champs middle event  | 19 April 2021 - Planner: Viv Prince and Controller: Dave Armstrong
Ngapara Ponds sprint event   | 20 April 2021 - Planner: Joe Sherriff  and Controller: Alister Metherell 
And many helping in other ways:  a special mention to Peter Swanson on THE ONZ committee backing us all the way, and all others on the MTBO Commitee.Graeme Read for his work bringing and operating the caravan for organising our online entries, downloading and presenting results each day, and Dwayne Smith who travelled out just to help Graeme from Wananka, but not sure if he even tried a ride with a map - maybe next time!  There are also key people from Dunedin including Jeni Pelvin, but there were many more helping the crew from Central Otago orienteers. And special thanks to all our landowners and liaisons: Earnslaw One Ltd; Central Otago District Council; Central  Otago 4x4 club; and the landowners at Chatto Creek. 
Here are digital versions of the course one maps.

Wanting to know your start times, and pecking order with your fellow competitors? Start times now up in the "Entries & Start Lists" section....
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