The COVID-19 pandemic has caused orienteering races to be suspended for more than a year in Hong Kong, and significant travel restrictions have made travelling abroad to world ranking races impractical that the world ranking period was frozen from April 2020 to June 2021. World Trail Orienteering Championships (WTOC) 2020 in Hong Kong was cancelled, and WTOC 2021 in Poland has been postponed to 2022.
As restrictions are gradually lifted, races are starting to run again. In Hong Kong, races are planning to resume from October, and internationally, world ranking races are returning in normal numbers in the second half of 2021.
In Hong Kong, a PreO qualification is planned on 24 October upon approval of gathering restriction exemption, with a TempO qualification planned in November, and the annual championships, which are world ranking races, planned in December.
Outside of Hong Kong, the first appearance of Hong Kong athletes in world ranking events after the pandemic is in Nordic Match held in Norway, postponed from 2020 to September 2021, by Michael Tsang living in the UK participating in two PreO races there.