The first Trail Orienteering course ever in Sevilla

After a Clinic in Valencia and the National Championships in Pontevedra, the Spanish Trail Orienteering gave another important step this year. Sevilla revealed being the perfect place for a demonstration event, full of importance and meaning.

Included in the Sports Games of Sevilla 2016, took place in the Ribera del Guadaira Park the first Trail Orienteering event ever in the province of Sevilla. The aim of this initiative was to present the TrailO to the Sevillian orienteers after finishing their FootO course. Twenty seven athletes – three of which in wheelchair – accepted the challenge and could experience the peculiarities of this really special discipline. A single course, with four controls, was offered to the competitors and, overall, the initiative has been a success. Especially the experienced orienteers could notice the importance of skills like accuracy, map reading and interpretation of the control description in TrailO, comparatively to a FootO event.

For over 20 years, Miguel Ángel Garcia have been practicing Foot orienteering, with some small tries in MTB Orienteering. He was, now, the Sevillian event's “soul”: “Last year I've been to Navacerrada to the Iberian Trail Orienteering Championships and, from that experience, I decided to deepen and learn more about Trail Orienteering”, he remembers. After reading all the documentation that came into his hands and attending a Clinic in Valencia, in the end of February, he could notice “the lack of knowledge about TrailO existing between the foot orienteers” and decided to take a first step, setting up a small course to show the discipline to his club mates.

“With my infinite constraints, the challenge was to set a few simple controls but with the need of map reading and description analyzes. I've eventually lived this experience as a pleasant surprise and I'm eager to correspond to the competitors' calls and repeat the experience”, Miguel Ángel concludes. Last, but not least, the winners with four correct answers were Rocio Duran and Carmen Pla.

Joaquim Margarido