09.08.2019 - An orienteering race at the language border?
It is difficult to explain the “Roeschti rift” to foreigners. At the opening ceremony for the SOW, it was said that this rift didn’t exist in the Saanen country and the Pays d’Enhaut. However exactly in Rougemont, the fifth stage of the SOW started today under the title “the tricky one”.
On the way to the start, which was far away from the event centre, many competitors took advantage of the long approach to chat with each other or to exchange their personal well-being. No wonder then that one could make out many different foreign languages with the international field of participants. No matter what language, the topics were all very similar. A young Swiss runner from the Eastern part thought that he still needed to work on his mental preparation whereas in the physical and map-technical aspects he was ready.
Speaking of maps: for all stages and training areas of the SOW 2019 new maps were produced. Outsiders may call these confusing plans, but they are always two-dimensional and exact replicas of landscapes. For the time-consuming creation of orienteering maps, real artists are at work translating all terrain formations into the world-wide “orienteering mapping language” using more than 100 globally standardized symbols, lines and hachures. This creates equal requirements for all orienteers all over the world with no language barriers. Not even in Rougemont.
Only one thing the “the tricky stage” did not reveal: will there be a separate symbol one day for the “Roeschti rift”? Then explaining it would be easier.
