The World Games is an international multi-sport event comprising sports and sporting disciplines that are not contested in the Olympic Games. Like the Olympics, they are usually held every four years and one year after the summer Olympic Games.

In most recent additions between 25-30 sports have been included and around 3,500 participants from around 100 nations take part, so for the athletes, it is a real chance to experience a multi-sport environment.

Great Britain Senior Orienteering Team...

Both GB Charlotte Ward and GB Ralph Street will hope to continue their run of good form after achieving their World Orienteering Championships 2022 silver medal in the Relay and Ralph a podium place in the Individual Sprint.  GB Jonathan Crickmore who also had a great performance in the Knock-Out Sprint at the World Orienteering Championships will hope that he can also bounce off the positive atmosphere around the Great Britain team at the moment.

GB Cecilie Andersen will make her first international start for Great Britain this year after some good performances in 2021, she will hope to gain experience in a multi-sport environment.  

The athletes who arrived in Birmingham, USA yesterday (12 July), will have the first day of competition taking place on Friday 15 July, with the Individual Sprint.  The Middle will take place on Saturday 16 July and the Mixed Relay on Sunday 17 July will conclude the programme of orienteering  events.

The Full Orienteering Programme is as follows...

We wish all four athletes the best of luck at the competition, and look forward to seeing them in action!

-----

HISTORY OF ORIENTEERING

Source from the World Games website.  

Orienteering is a sport that combines racing with navigation. It is a timed race in which individual participants use a specially created, highly-detailed map to select routes and navigate through diverse and unfamiliar terrain to visit control points in sequence. Courses can range from forests to urban environments. A standard orienteering course consists of a start; a series of control sites that are marked by circles, connected by lines and numbered in the order they are to be visited; and a finish. The control site circles are centered on the feature that is to be found. This feature is also defined by control descriptions (a list that orienteers receive along with their map). Out in the terrain, a control flag marks the location that the orienteer must visit. To verify a visit, the orienteer uses an electronic “punch” using a finger stick with a chip inside that records their time at each control they visit. The route between controls is not specified and is entirely up to the orienteer.

The World Games 2022 will include three disciplines: Middle Distance, Sprint, and Sprint Relay.

MIDDLE DISTANCE

Middle Distance, often referred to as “Middle,” is a shorter cross-country race than the classic. With a winning time in the region of 30 minutes, it places an emphasis more on fine navigation rather than route-choice navigation.

SPRINT

Sprint involves very short races, with winning times in the region of 12–15 minutes. They are held in city parks and other more urban settings with control sites that include benches, litter bins, sculptures, and other objects common to urban parks.

SPRINT RELAY

Sprint Relay is a relay race run by a team of competitors. Each individual runs the course, and the result is based on the collective time of the team totaled together.

Find out more on the World Games website.