The government has issued new guidance for the national lockdown in England, which comes into force on Tuesday 5 January.

The guidance states that:

• Outdoor exercise is still permitted but should be limited to once per day.
• You can exercise in a public outdoor place:
  • by yourself.
  • with the people you live with.
  • with your support bubble (if you are legally permitted to form one).
  • in a childcare bubble where providing childcare.
  • or, when on your own, with one person from another household.
• Outdoor exercise should be done locally wherever possible, but you can travel a short distance within your area to do so if necessary (for example, to access an open space). If you need to travel you should stay local – meaning avoiding travelling outside of your village, town or the part of a city where you live – and look to reduce the number of journeys you make overall.
• All outdoor sports clubs, centres, venues and facilities will close, alongside indoor facilities.
• Organised outdoor sport for disabled people is allowed to continue, and we will provide further detail on this once we have information from the Government.

All organised orienteering activities, including events, competitions, leagues and coaching, are therefore suspended with immediate effect (except for orienteering for disabled people, on which we will provide further information in due course).

POCs and VOCS

POCs and VOCs can still be used for individual exercise. Courses should be registered with British Orienteering as activities to provide insurance cover for the club and planner. They must not be used for competitions or leagues.

We would recommend that you add any courses on to the British Orienteering POC portal via your club POC Manager or contact nweir@britishorienteering.org.uk

The full national lockdown: stay at home guidelines are available on the UK government website.

Guidance for orienteering clubs

Up to date support and guidance for UK orienteering clubs is available via our COVID page.

The First Minister has today announced that Tier 4 restrictions have been brought forward to the 20 December 2020.

However, the guidance that the Welsh Executive has published is clear that people who live in Tier 4 areas must not travel out of their Tier 4 area other than for legally permitted reasons, and that people who live in Tier 4 areas must not leave or be outside of their home except where they have a specific purpose or ‘reasonable excuse’.

For those living in a Tier 4 area, unlimited outdoor exercise is still permitted, including in parks and the countryside. Exercise must be alone, or in a public outdoor place with your household, support bubble, or one other person. Exercise should be done locally wherever possible, but you can travel a short distance within your Tier 4 area to do so if necessary (for example, to access an open space).

Orienteers are obviously required to comply with the new restrictions and with other government guidance.

British Orienteering will the guidance as further details of the new restrictions become available.

Sunday 1st August - Saturday 7 August 2021

The 23rd Scottish 6 Days Orienteering event will be held in Lochaber between the 1st and 7th August 2021 (immediately following O-Ringen in Sweden). Lochaber is a scenic area in the Scottish Highlands, including Fort William, the outdoor capital of Scotland and Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the UK.

Today the GB JWOC squad ran the long distance race in Särkänpera, Finland, with courses of over 10.7km for the men and 7.6km for the women. There were, once again, many strong performances from our team, with records being set along the way.

Sasha Chepelin continued his superb run of form, coming in in 7th place in a very tight race, just 7 seconds off a podium position. Sasha will no doubt be slightly frustrated with another near miss, as reflected in his post race interview, ‘I'm not actually too happy - my race was pretty scrappy and I nearly ended up doing the butterfly loop backwards. I felt a bit better after taking on some energy, but I'm not sure I used my energy that well, as I feel OK now.' However, his JWOC 2017 individual discipline positions of 7th, 5th, and 7th make him the first Brit to ever gain 3 individual top tens, showing outstanding consistency against the very top of the international scene.