Teaching judgment
Victory often turns on a single factor: decision making. At international competitions, which can take upwards of an hour and cover more than ten kilometers, it is typically the competitor who makes the better decisions who wins.
"Competitors are thinking, 'Will the straight route get me there, or should I go around?'" says one of the coaches of the Taiwanese team that went to the World Championships in Denmark in August. "It's something you learn. In the end, winning depends on how you react and how well you make decisions."
Taiwan's Chuang Pei-chi studied her map and compass in the midst of her race, and contemplated her next step. "Should I plow through the thick woods, or take the gentle slope beside them?" She ultimately elected to take the route around the woods, which was longer by 200 meters.
But wouldn't taking the longer route mean defeat? "There's a lot of variability in woodland," explains Chuang. "Running 200 meters up a slope is sometimes faster than trying to plow through dense forest."
Geographic limitations
According to Outdoor magazine, the number of orienteering enthusiasts in Scandinavia now surpasses that of the world's number-one sport--soccer. Sweden holds five major competitions every year with upwards of 15,000 people participating in each. One event actually drew more than 40,000. It seems nearly everyone in the country orienteers.
But in spite of its popularity in Europe, the sport remains relatively unknown in Taiwan. Given how few people participate and that only two organizations--the Chinese-Taipei Orienteering Association and the Chinese-Taipei Orienteering Federation--are so far promoting it, it's very clear that orienteering is barely a blip on the radar of Taiwan's sporting scene.
If the sport is to develop in Taiwan, it must overcome the constraints imposed by Taiwan's physical landscape. A good orienteering course requires at least one square kilometer of traversable land of variable topography. But it shouldn't be too steeply sloped or have too much vegetation. Few places in Taiwan meet these conditions. So far, only a bare dozen or so orienteering maps have been produced for all of Taiwan. Worse, many of these are for urban parks. There's no orienteering without maps, and Taiwan's lack of suitable maps is currently the biggest obstacle to the sport's development here.
The Chinese-Taipei Orienteering Association's Chuang Pei-chi admits that there are few orienteers in Taiwan and that her own organization has only 60 or so formal members (most of whom are mountaineers or middle- and long-distance runners). But she says that promotion of the sport in recent years has made growing numbers of people familiar with orienteering and notes that several of the island's physical education colleges now include it in their curriculum. Moreover, with orienteering slated to be among the competitions at the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung, the government is going all out to promote the sport in Taiwan.
If you've ever lost your way in the countryside or have trouble remembering which exit to take from the metro station, you've certainly asked yourself, "Where am I?" Most people aren't born with a great sense of direction, and it's very easy to panic when you don't know where you are. Fortunately, you can train your directional sense, and orienteering can be a great first step.
Color Distinctions on Orienteering Maps
Orienteering maps do not name the specific geographic features they depict. In fact, map text is usually limited to the map's name, the name of the competition or its sponsor, and the legend. Instead of texts, the maps use a system of seven colors to denote topographic features. The International Orienteering Federation's standards for the use of color are as follows:
Brown:Landforms.
Black:Rocks and boulders; types distinguished by different symbols.
Blue:Water.
Yellow:Open land; the lighter the yellow, the more open the land.
Green:Forests and undergrowth; the lighter the green, the more passable the forest.
White: Easily traversable forest.
Purple:Course symbols.
Orienteering Organizations in Taiwan:
Chinese-Taipei Orienteering Association
Website: www.orienteering.org.tw
Tel: (02) 8771-1444; (02) 8772-4715
Chinese-Taipei Orienteering Federation
Website: www.ctof.org.tw
Tel: (02) 8787-0296; (02) 3765-1700