Courses and Classes

While the same age-based competition classes will be used for most events, they will be distrbuted among the available courses as recommended in the Orienteering Canada Course and Class Guidelines. For Fishbones, we will follow the recommendations for Smaller Canada Cups while the Championship will follow those for Large Events. Additionally, there will be a set of non-competitive classes available.

Age-based Competition Classes (all races except FB KO Sprint)

There are age class championships for all age groups (2 year age groups for 20 and under, 10 year age groups for 35 to 75, 5 year age groups for 70 and over) at the festival. There is an F and M class for each age class.

Due to issues with liability, the following decision was reached:
Where a request to run up two or more age classes results in a substantial increase in technical difficulty (Middle, Long), it will not be approved. Where the requested age-class change does not result in additional technical difficulty beyond what would already be permitted with a one-age-class run-up (Sprint), it may be approved. This approach allows us to apply the same standard fairly and consistently to all competitors.

For Fishbones and Other events:

• In the Fishbones spirit of Keeping it Simple, no medals will be awarded (a small token may be provided)

Non-Competitive Classes

For participants wanting a course outside their age class, there are recreational (non-competitive) options (and no medals).

• Open classes allow participants of any age to choose the course they wish to run on. You can choose a course appropriate to your orienteering skill-set and physical fitness.

  • Fishbones (middle/long): Open-1,2,3,4,5,6,7
  • Championships (middle): Open-1,2,3,4,5,6
  • Championships (long): Open-1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9
  • Championships (sprint): Open-1,2,3,4

• Special Case: All registrations for the Fishbones Knockout Sprint will be into the same Male/Female Qualifier and will proceed towards the M/F Finals from there. Everyone runs the same course at each stage, but each stage will have a different course.

Technical Difficulty and Recommended Winning Times

Since the terrain for orienteering courses, and the speed at which the terrain can be traversed, varies significantly from event to event, Orienteering Canada has uses Technical Difficuly (TD) and Recommended Winning Times (RWT) instead of using distance guidelines for setting courses.

Orienteering Canada defines five Technical Difficulty (TD) levels for orienteering courses. TD1, TD2, TD3 range from Beginner to Intermediate and typically target youth who are building their skills. TD5 targets the Expert and Elite participants which leaves TD4 aimed at Veteran racers.

Courses will be shorter on slower terrain (thicker forest, more hills) so that winning times remain relatively consistent for a given age class. For Middle events, courses are designed so that the RWTs are around 30 minutes (for elite classes on those courses), Long event RWTs fall closer to 60 minutes, while Sprints are typically designed to take about 15 minutes.

More information can be found in Orienteering Canada’s Course and Class Guidelines

Transgender and Non-Binary

The Orienteering Canada Board recently approved a Transgender and Non-Binary Inclusion policy. The gist of the policy is:

At both recreational and competitive levels, a Participant is able to participate in either their sex assigned at birth or the gender category in which they identify or choose in the case of a non-binary Participant.

This means a participant may declare their gender (Male, Female or Unspecified) during registration and enter classes appropriate for that declaration.
More information can be found at Orienteering Canada’s Transgender and Non-Binary Inclusion Policy