Orienteering Belongs in the Olympics
No sport is more worthy (and virus-proof)
Orienteering is arguably more deserving of Olympic-level competition than any other sport, especially now. Below are 11 reasons why. Do you know more?
1. No other sport combines rugged athleticism with high-level cognition like orienteering. You’re playing chess with the planet while running headlong across it. Excelling at the highest levels of the sport requires both endurance and sprint running ability across complex trailless wilderness terrain while using a map, compass, clues, and situational awareness to find a series of specific points within that wilderness, as fast as possible. The human body is an orienteering machine.
2. Orienteering is for everyone. A typical meet offers a range of courses from short and easy to long and difficult, so there’s a course for every skill and fitness level. Participants may be from ~ 5 (accompanied) to 75+ years old. The fact that everyone can learn to orienteer gives it an accessibility that not all sports offer. For example, sports like ski jumping or pole vaulting are absolutely amazing to watch, but how many people have ever actually done those things? Orienteering perfectly satisfies the International Olympic Committee mission: “encourage the regular practice of sport by all people in society, regardless of sex, age, social background or economic status”.
3. Orienteering can be watched. A distant past argument against orienteering is that it’s not a spectator sport. Modern technology destroys this argument, as seen in current international competitions. Mobile cameras and drones provide real-time video of course runners. Image-stabilized bodycams may provide the competitors’ point of view. Tracking devices show competitors’ progress relative to control points and each other on digital maps. With modern technology applied to its fullest (along with #2 above), orienteering becomes among the best spectator sports!
4. Orienteering is international. Orienteering clubs or national organizations exist in most countries and on every continent except Antarctica.
5. Orienteering is intensely fun! If you’ve never done it, look up your local club, go to a meet, learn the sport, and enjoy! Once you try it, you’ll say “O!”. Kids especially love orienteering. Interestingly, one particularly fun (and educational) part of orienteering happens after finishing: competitors randomly gather with their maps to review the course, compare running strategies, analyze mistakes, and yes, laugh about them.
6. Orienteering is beautiful. Meets are usually held in natural areas, parks, and wilderness. The sport leads you to explore these areas with speed and purpose, but that doesn’t mean you can’t also enjoy the natural beauty in passing. The first time I saw a hummingbird nest was while orienteering.
7. Orienteering is useful. Experienced orienteers apply skills they learn from the sport every time they travel in an unfamiliar area; no GPS needed! Such skills become fairly important when you’re trying to find an urgent care clinic, wilderness shelter, or 7-11. Considered another way, it’s hard to imagine how your life could ever depend on badminton skills (no offense to badminton, which is great fun to play and watch!).
8. Orienteering is educational. Things one can learn from orienteering include: map reading, use of a compass with a map, how to “read” terrain, how to determine the fastest way from point A to B, judgement of distance, rock scrambling, one’s athletic limits, recovery from becoming lost, geology, hydrology/limnology, forestry, and how much fun you can have in the great outdoors. I taught my kids to orienteer, but how the turn tables. Once while running a course with my younger daughter (then age 10), we couldn’t find a control after increasingly frantic searching. We stopped to study the map. She pinpointed a spot on it and said, “Umm, Dad, I think we’re actually here, not there.” After I realized she was right, we (she!) quickly found the elusive control point.
9. Based on everything above, it comes to this:
Orienteering is at least as Olympic-worthy as established Olympic sports,
if not more so. Nothing else comes close to orienteering as a combined physical and cognitive challenge. Cross country running also unquestionably deserves to be an Olympic sport. (In fact, it was in the early 1900s!) With great respect to cross country, in comparison to orienteering, it is like running while playing tic tac toe vs. running while playing 3-D speed chess.
But wait, there’s more!
10. Orienteering offers variety. Meets are held and courses set for mountain bikes, cross-country skiers, SCUBA divers, running at night, etc. One of the most enjoyable courses I ever did was a “Canoe-O” on the Charles River near Boston with my kids. Not that every form of orienteering needs to be in the Olympics, but then again … ?
11. Then there’s this: Orienteering is pandemic-proof. Any possible points of disease transmission are easily mitigated.
If you need more trivial reasons to support orienteering, it starts with “O”, just like the Olympics and other fantastic fun things! So what are we waiting for? Let’s orienteer our way into the Olympics!
If you agree that orienteering should be an Olympic sport, please forward this or your own communique to the International Olympic Committee and to your country’s Olympic governing organization. Also, please share this proposal with others who may consider supporting it. Thank you!
