History
Madeira Orienteering Festival
The Madeira Orienteering Festival emerged in January 2008 within the Funchal Mountain Club with the clear objective of promoting the sport (and its terrain) of Orienteering across borders. This initiative aimed to capture some of the world's best athletes experiencing local terrain while encouraging the technical training of local athletes.
Therefore, the Funchal Mountain Club drafted a scheme that was put into practice between the 23rd and 25th of January 2008, with a total of four stages distributed along the eastern side of the island of Madeira, more precisely in Poiso (1st stage); Caniçal (2nd stage); Queimadas (3rd stage) and Machico (4th stage).
Equipa organizadora do MOF 2009 com o atleta Thierry Gueorgiou
In the following year, the organization of the Clube Montanha do Funchal decided to maintain the same competition scheme, divided into four stages, spread across Fanal (1st stage); Poiso II (2nd stage); Porto da Cruz (3rd stage) and Paúl da Serra (4th stage).
This year the MOF took place between the 28th and 30th of January 2009 and had 150 registered athletes. It should be noted that, curiously, the 4th stage scheduled for Paúl da Serra ended up being canceled for meteorological reasons (snow).
In 2010, four stages were held, spread across Caniçal (1st stage); Machico (2nd stage); Chão da Lagoa (3rd stage) and Santo da Serra (4th stage).
This year the MOF took place between the 26th and 28th of January 2010 and had approximately 100 registered athletes.
After a 5-year break, in 2016, Clube Montanha do Funchal organizes the fourth edition of the Madeira Orienteering Festival, assuming the weekend as the ideal period for holding the event. Therefore, in this year of recovery, it was decided to carry out three stages, all in the area surrounding Poiso.
In 2016, the MOF took place between the 16th and 17th of January and had 81 registered athletes, all of Portuguese nationality.
Number of athletes registered per edition
In 2017, the fifth edition of this event continues with a focus on a new impetus for the national and international nature of the event. Therefore, the strategy of promoting the event among the national and foreign orienteering community was resumed, having collected a total of 154 registered athletes from 6 different nationalities.
This edition took place between the 9th and 12th of February and was characterized by being the only edition (to date) with 5 stages, distributed across Funchal (1st stage); Fanal (2nd stage); Porto Moniz (3rd stage); Poiso I (4th stage) and Poiso II (5th stage).