Route Choice

Another factor is that each individual may have particular strengths; one may run very fast on a track, but slow down dramatically in the forest; another may have no great turn of speed, but chug away steadily uphill; still another may have no confidence in her ability to follow a compass bearing, but may be able to read contours very well. Hence the choice of a route on a given leg between controls may have many possible "best" solutions. This also means that the best route for a beginner may not be the best route for an advanced orienteer. As an example, the map shown here gives the route choices and variations taken by the top orienteers at the Swedish National Championships some years ago (recall that there are about as many Swedish orienteers as all other countries combined!). Each orienteer's route is shown as a single red line and, at places where several individuals went the same way, red numbers show how many orienteers followed that portion of the route. Some fields (yellow) were out of bounds because crops were growing and are marked with red cross-hatching. Although this is perhaps an extreme example, it does show the variety of routes (and combinations of subsets of routes) that may be possible on a single leg!