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A cancelled European tour led to the start of O-Ringen
The year was 1965. The international orienteers' "runners' union", O-Ringen, had been formed in 1962 using "Ski-ringen" as a role model. O-Ringen's main goal was to improve orienteering as a sport and to make it more international. We had map and course planning problems at the start of to 60's. Towards the end of the 50's and the early 60's we had gone over to contours from hachures and where the topographical 1:50,0000 scale maps were unavailable, orienteers drew their own maps. But the way in which the course planners took advantage of these maps left a lot to be desired.

European tour
During 1960 I suggested to the Swedish Orienteering Federation's secretary, Hans Hedlund, that SOFT should arrange a tour to non-orienteering nations in Europe and organise introduction events with nation team runners taking part. At that time we competed on standard maps and the maps in central Europe were at least as good as those in the Nordic nations. SOFT was however indifferent to the idea, which was why I tried to realise it in some form or another. I made contact with course planners in Switzerland, West Germany, Liechtenstein and Denmark and brought about competitions in these countries during two weeks in 1961. Swedish orienteers took part in this trip. The next tour, which was organised in 1963, had 75 participants from Sweden, Denmark and Norway and was a great success. The third tour was planned for 1965, but unfortunately I didn't manage to find suitable accommodation in Switzerland. As a result the trip was cancelled - and I was left with some extra time on my hands.

Cycling as a role model
I was reminded of Sivar Nordström's idea: a six-day orienteering race using cycling's six-day race as a model. Contact was established with Sivar and we agreed to try to organise a five-day race (so as not to be confused with the six-day cycle competition) in the summer of 1965. We were however rather late in the planning of this, but got help from "Skogssport" (orienteering magazine) and "Idrottsbladet" (sports magazine) with attracting competitors. In my home district of Skåne we found two orienteering maps which Sivar and I thought were sufficiently good to be used for orienteering races. The new map at Frostavallen was, furthermore, so large that Malmö AI (with Yngve Ek at the keel) could organise both the second and fourth stages on it. After that, however, there were no more orienteering maps in Skåne, so the first stages were held at Hilleröd in Denmark, where Emil Fredriksson planned fine courses. Officials were so scarce that the guest of honour and patron, Idrottsbladet's chief editor Torsten Tegnér, had to help. However, several years later he was pleased to see the 5-Days avalanche start to roll. The last stages were organised at Karlsnäsgården, to the north of Kallinge in Blekinge. This was particularly appropriate since our competition days were Monday to Friday and the following weekend IFK Ronneby and Skogsvandrarna had their traditional races.

Evening races
There were 167 participants on four different courses. Sivar and myself calculated the total results with the help of our wives. We had made sure that the best orienteer during the 60's, Magne Lystad, took part in the races. Magne wasn't in top form, but five days' of racing (he came eighth in total) helped him to take a bronze in the Nordic Championships which were held in Norway later in the autumn. The races were held in the evenings and so several of the officials from Skåne, including myself, could work as usual during the day. Claire Ek led the women's race after four stages, but was overtaken by Inga-Britt Bengtsson. I got off to a flying start, with a victory and two second places, but then it went down hill. I still had a small lead at the start of the final stage but my misfortune continued and I finished "merely" third, overtaken by Nisse Bohman (winner) and Sven Andersson. We had in fact chosen a chasing start (first man to the finish is the winner) already in the first year of the competition and this naturally helped in the great success of the event. A couple of participating SOFT committee members offered to take over the race in the future but we answered "no thank-you" as we wanted to shape it ourselves. Why did the event get the name O-Ringen 5-dags? Well, it was because O-Ringen was the only organisation that both Sivar and I were members and as members of O-Ringen we wanted to contribute to improvement of orienteering as a sport. Over the following years, more and more members of O-Ringen (union) became involved, including Rolf Jacobsson (fourth 1965) and Nils-Göran Albinsson (ninth 1965).

Administrative genius
We gained good publicity from Idrottsbladet's editor Torsten Tegnér, who realised that this was going to be something big. During the coming years, Nils-Göran Albinsson contributed a great deal to the event. It was he who suggested we should make it an event for the masses with courses for all age classes. He was the Race Organiser for eleven years, and something of an administrative genius. O-Ringen (the runner's union) came to assume the responsibility for taking care of foreign competitors and that they have done since the first eastern Europeans were invited.

Author: Peo Bengtsson (translated by Steven Hale)