SOA Safety Director, Tim O’Donoghue, reflects on managing risks during urban orienteering, and suggests some steps for individual orienteers and clubs to take, to reduce risks from collisions.
Urban events in a variety of formats have become an established part of orienteering over the last 15 or so years, to the extent that in alternate years the World Championships focus on sprint style events, normally in an urban environment. The level of technical difficulty is frequently lower than in traditional orienteering terrain and the emphasis is on speed – speed of decision making and running speed.
The last Scottish Orienteering Urban League (SOUL) event of 2025 was hosted by Edinburgh Southern Orienteering Club at Newhaven this year and saw the 2025 SOUL League winners receiving their trophies.
For some the 2025 Scottish Sprint Championship and 3rd Scottish Orienteering Urban League (SOUL) event of the year was the first weekend of the Easter Holidays and for others it was a delightful taste of Vitamin sunshine paired with a pair of Urban brain teasers.
The events which form part of the 2023 Scottish Orienteering League (SOUL) series have been finalised and details including links to all of the events can be found on the SOUL events page on the website or via this link here.
Eleven events will form the 2023 SOUL series. The best six scores will be used to determine an individual’s league positions for all classes other than the Young Junior, Junior and Hyper Veteran classes where the best four scores will count for an individual’s league position.
SOLWAY Urban Event Map
The roll of honour for the 2022 SOUL series, with details of those first, second and third in each class, is available here. The trophy presentation will take part after the Edinburgh University Orienteering Club’s (EUOC) Edinburgh City Race (SOUL 1) on January 28th 2023. Certificates for the first three in each class have already been distributed to clubs.
