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Orienteering is a running sport involving navigation with a map and compass. The traditional form (sometimes referred to as "Foot Orienteering" or "Foot-O") involves cross-country running, though other forms have evolved. more...

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The competition is a timed race in which individual participants use a special purpose map and a magnetic compass to navigate through diverse terrain (often wooded) and visit, in sequence, control points that are indicated on the map. The course of control points is kept a secret from competitors before the start, when they are provided with a detailed topographic map on which the course is marked. Competitors start at staggered intervals, are individually timed, and are expected to perform all navigation skills on their own. Standings are determined first by successful completion of the course, then by shortest time on course. Rules and principles of the sport are defined by the International Orienteering Federation.

The English name derives from the Swedish word "orientering". The term was first used to describe the sport in 1918 by Major Ernst Killander, then President of the Stockholm Amateur Athletic Association, in publicity for the first large scale competitive meet held in Sweden.

History

Early days

Orienteering originated in Scandinavia, as a military exercise, in the late 19th century. The competitive sport form began in Norway where the first competition was sponsored by the Tjalve Sports Club on 31 October 1897 and held near Oslo. The course was quite long by modern standards, at 19.5 km, on which only three controls were placed. Peder Fossum won the event in a time of 1 hour, 47 minutes, and 7 seconds. The first large scale orienteering meet was organized in 1918 by Major Ernst Killander of Stockholm, Sweden. Killander was a Scout leader who turned to the sport as an opportunity to interest youth in athletics. The first large scale event was organized south of Stockholm and was attended by 220 athletes. Killander continued to develop the rules and principles of the sport, and today is widely regarded throughout Scandinavia as the "Father of Orienteering".

The sport gained popularity with the development of more reliable compasses in the 1930s. The first international competition between orienteers of Sweden and Norway was held outside Oslo, Norway in 1932. In 1933, the Swedish compass manufacturer Silva Sweden AB introduced a new compass design, the protractor compass. Until the development of thumb compasses, the protractor compass would remain the state of the art in the sport. By 1934, over a quarter million Swedes were actively participating in the sport, and orienteering had spread to Finland, Switzerland, the Soviet Union, and Hungary. The nations of Finland, Norway, and Sweden all established national championships. The Swedish national orienteering society, Svenska Orienteringförbundet, the first national orienteering society, was founded in 1936.

Read more at Wikipedia.org