Understanding Orienteering Results

At the average orienteering meet, there will be three or more courses, with Course 1 being the easiest. Higher numbered courses are longer and technically more difficult. A "B" class meet will normally have three or four courses, while an "A" meet will have at least five or six. National championships or world class events will have at least the eight courses required under International Orienteering Federation rules.

Courses are usually listed with their lengths in kilometres and the uphill climb in metres. Note that these are "ideal" distances, measured over straight lines between controls, avoiding only barriers that cannot be crossed on foot (such as lakes.) As most orienteerers learn early in their careers, the actual distance you'll travel will be longer than this. New Canadian Orienteering Federation rules and guidelines specify that courses should be set based on expected winning times and not ideal distances. One would hope that we'll see these ideal times posted more often.

Individuals running a particular course are divided by age category and gender. The "official" age categories are:

-12, 13-14, 15-16, 17-20, 21-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65-

In addition, most courses have "Novice" "Open" and "Wayfarer" categories. "Novices" are beginners to the sport. Anyone may participate in the non-competitive "open" category. Groups of people (for example, families) may do a course together as a "wayfaring" group. (Most meet organizers won't accept Novices or Wayfarers on upper level courses, since these are supposed to be significantly more difficult than a short walk in the woods.)

In team events, each member of the team must normally run a course at their age level or higher. As well, each team member will often be required to run a different course. A common way of scoring is by adding each team member's time and dividing by the sum of the ideal lengths of each team member's course.

For various reasons, orienteerers will be unable to complete their course within the time limit. There are various codes used in meet results to explain the different reasons. Some of these are:

DNF - Did Not Finish

DNS - Did Not Start (after registering)

DSQ - Disqualified. Most often happens for finding and recording a control from a different course.

OVT - Overtime: completed the course, but did not get back before the time limit. Doing this deliberately or accidentally is generally pretty bad manners, when the time limit expires, most organizers will be reaching for the phone to call the police and/or Search and Rescue.

SPR - Sporting Withdrawal: used under special circumstances. For example, all orienteerers are required by the rules if not by common decency to stop and provide assistance to anyone who is injured or otherwise in danger of being hurt, even if this means withdrawing from the race part way through. This especially applies to adult orienteerers who come across young children lost in the woods.

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