"'In the beginning was the Word...' Well, no, we won't go quite that far back to find the beginnings of orienteering in Belgium and the birth of ASUB-Orientation, the first club to join the ABCO, the then Belgian Orienteering Association. One idea leading to another, I felt the need to put together some memories of this period, not so long ago, when an inspired Swede came to visit our kingdom's athletes and introduce them to a new sport.   It was in 1963. Marcel Biron  Marcel Biron and Freddy Herman were among these pioneers.  With a band of friends they organised the first orienteering events on National Geographical Institute maps, went abroad to see how things were done there, then began to draw our first proper orienteering maps to International Orienteering Federation standards.

When I joined ASUB, I heard mention of mysterious names - the Oosterlynck Challenge, the Moses Challenge - and I wondered how these had begun. Little by little, picking up bits of information here and there, I found out something about these people from another generation who had played a major part in the development of our sport. New members today certainly ask themselves the same kind of questions. The purpose of these pages of our website is to bring together all these memories, documents and statements from that period, to prevent their loss and to relate as fully as possible how things happened. So please will those of you who have been orienteering for much longer than I send me your memories, correct any mistakes, clear up what is still vague, send me photos...

This work has only just begun, it is up to you to help fill these pages if your memory speaks.

Philippe Dujardin
dujardin.philippe@gmail.com