Orienteering disciplines

Orienteering has nowadays several quite different disciplines in which runners can compete – they differ basically in its expected winner’s time, terrain in which they are run, map scale or course setting. Winner is always that person who has the shortest time (and all required controls in right order). If we will categorize disciplines by length of running (for men’s elite – women have shorter versions), we will get this list of basic ones:

Sprint – The shortest of disciplines at about 12-15 minutes for winner, emphasize runner’s ability to run fast and make quick decision. Sprint is often run in cities or urban areas and was developed to get orienteering to contact with normal people. Map scale is usually 1:4-5000 and is created in special sprint map key which emphasize obstacles and size of objects.

Reading map

Middle – Discipline which concentrate on runner’s ability to orientate and run quickly in a very difficult terrain (map reading demanding) which takes at about 35 minutes. It’s run in the most complicated terrains and consists usually from many controls with short distances between them. Map scale is 1:10000 and it is used classic map key.

Relays – Team competition, usually with 3-4 team members who are running for average 45 minutes each (but there are competitions with bigger number of runners of one time and much more longer running time). It starts in a mass start of first legs (first runners of team) which run their course and after it exchange with another one. Map scale is 1:10000 and classic map key is used.

Relays are often most spectacular orienteering discipline

Night – Special shortened course in night – time for winner differs very much (from middle’s 35 minutes up to 90 minutes of long distance). Runners have special lights designed for extreme conditions (what running through a forest in a night certainly is). Courses are little bit easier in comparison to day ones, but in a night is even really easy control quite demanding to find (although they have attached reflexes). Map scale is 1:10000 and classic map key is used.

Long – The oldest and royal discipline, winners usually exceed time of 90 minutes. It’s the longest common discipline which concentrate on ability to choose best way between controls and endure long demanding running in a high pace. Map scale is 1:15000 and classic map key is used.

Of course, there are also some variations of these disciplines – for example ultralong distance is even longer than long distance (like 120 minutes for winner). There can be mass start in all disciplines (or interval in all except relays) and so on, but these five listed are basic ones nowadays.