Nopesport

Thierry Gueorgiou of France and Simone Niggli-Luder of Switzerland have been crowned Orienteers of the Year for 2005 in a poll of Orienteering Today subscribers.

It was unsurprising that having claimed another full set of Gold medals at the World Championships in Japan, the Female orienteer of the year was Simone. By repeating her quadruple success of 2003 showed beyond all doubt that she is clearly the best female orienteer in the world. And this was supported by not finishing outside the top 2 at World Ranking events in 2005, winning 15 of the 22 she participated in. Respondants to the poll clearly saw no other possible candidate, with almost 79% naming her the Female Orienteer of the Year. Britains Heather Monro took joint 3rd place with Norway's Anne Margrethe Hausken. For Heather it was a memorable final year at the elite level, resulting in two Bronze medals, one at the World Championships in the Sprint and one at the World Games in the Middle distance. 2nd place in the poll went to Sweden's Jenny Johansson.

For his third successive Middle distance crown at the World Championships, it was the Frenchman Thierry who took the honours in the poll for the best Male Orienteer of 2005. This poll however was much closer, with just under 30% selecting "Tero" ahead of Russian Andrei Khramov, the overall World Cup Champion & World Championship Classic winner. 3rd place was tied between the young Swiss sprint master Daniel Hubmann and Denmark's Chris Terkelsen.

More on the poll can be found here