World Orienteering Day in Foshan, Guangdong Province, China

Back in the days in the US, my first several orienteering experiences were done by first renting a car, and then drove 2-3 hours to the orienteering events.  Then, I got a used car to do these orienteering road trips.

Those old days were lived again now in China. We drove 2-3 hours from Hong Kong to Foshan to attend the World Orienteering Day event in China.  World Orienteering Day lasts for a week from Wednesday in May, and now it was the fourth year having this day.

It was a hot and humid day. In the morning there was a 5km long sprint orienteering, where orienteering happened in a park next to a river.

The long sprint was not too hard, but there were quite a lot of yellow-green areas (forbidden areas) to check while running.  It was quite easy to pick a route that was tempting to cross the yellow-green areas.

Some areas were quite open, and we can call those legs "Foshan No Shadow Leg".

There were also several legs where choosing the right route will save a lot of time:


Yet, the great competition today was the maze orienteering battle.  The organizer set up two mazes that were mirrored, and placed controls that were mirrored. Then, two people ran the mirrored courses in the maze.

Moreover, this was a team of 3 competition, where order of team members is decided by the team in each round of competition.  Each team had at least two opportunities to play: the bracket has winner and loser sides. If a team lost for the first time, the team will be moved to the loser side. If the team lost again in the loser side, the team is eliminated.  It was important to decide the order of battles carefully, since the member assignment cannot be repeated for 3 rounds.

I heard that my battle in the first round was very close, and I lost by 1 second.

Then, Gilbert lost again, leaving Kin no opportunity to play.

After the final round, we were allowed to try the maze courses. Kin and I battled against each other for one course.

After orienteering, we had a good dinner in Shunde.

Then, we drove the rental car back to Shenzhen. The rental car kept overheating during the drive. Luckily, we found some ways to keep the rental car from overheating.

It was a great orienteering day today.