What Is Orienteering?

Orienteering is a sport for anybody and everybody at its highest level it has world class athletes competing at an international level, at its lowest level it enables people to escape into the country side, which is especially important here in London! It is a sport where elite orienteers can compete at the same time and in the same place as children and eighty plus year olds (although people compete against people of similar age and or ability). According to the International Orienteering Federation orienteering has been described as cunning running and running while playing chess while a slightly more appropriate phrase might be the thinking runners sport. If all this talk of running has put you off don't worry, running is an important part of the sport only as you begin to advance to higher levels.

What Does Orienteering Actually Involve?


Orienteering compertions can take place almost anywhere and the objective is to navigate around a number of control points in a set order using a specially drawn (high detail map) and a compass, the winner is the person who completes the course in the fastest time (which is not normally the fastest runner). It is a relatively cheap sport, all you need is a map (provided at the event), a compass (the club has some you can borrow if you do not have one) and suitable clothes (for more information see What to Bring), the club will normally subsidise transport to events.

If you are interested in orienteering you can contact the committee at londonorienteering@gmail.com and come along to a training session or event (we are nice friendly people and don't bite) and read how to orienteer.