Farragut begins orienteering team, competes in Orlando

Junior Valentina Fornaro Galliano submitted this story about the Orienteering team.

On Saturday the 14th of October, Farragut’s newly established Orienteering Team competed in Moss Park, a Florida State Park on the southeastern side of Orlando.

Orienteering is a sport that requires navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain whilst moving at speed. Participants are given a topographical map, usually a specially prepared orienteering map, which they use to find control points. Originally a training exercise in land navigation for prep school officers, orienteering has developed many variations. Among these, the oldest and the most popular is foot orienteering, which is what our team competed in on Saturday.

Working as individuals as well as teams, our runners found their way through varying terrain such as marsh, thick bush, saw palmetto, standing water, pine forests, thickets as well as crisscrossing dirt trails. The 14 competitors competed in two different courses: the Yellow (novice) course and the Orange (intermediate) course. Freshman Kenneth Fisher had the fastest time of the day on the Yellow course at 43 minutes and 40 seconds. Several Farragut students went on to compete on the Orange course and senior Jason Chen had the fastest time of the day on that course at 62 minutes. These are especially impressive scores since the orienteering team is in its inaugural year.

When the team was finished they got the chance to relax, eat and socialize with other schools that competed that day. The team would like to thank CDR Schock and 1st Sergeant Sanchez for giving them a chance to compete and have a great time in Moss Park. The team is excited and encouraged by their success the first time out and are ready to compete again.

To view scores of the day you may visit the Florida Orienteering website.