These sports involve navigation from one control point to the next and, in most cases, the choice of route is left to the competitor.
[1] Given a choice of route, the competitor evaluates trade-offs among such factors as distance, amount of "climb" (vertical movement), degree and extent of "fight" (travel through obstructing vegetation), mode of travel, technical difficulty, and the competitor's own preferences.
Orienteering sports in which route choice is an important factor provide few locations where spectators can watch the race.
During World Orienteering Championships 2009, the racers wore GPS tracking devices and many spectators watched them racing via the Internet.
These spectators who watched the men's relay race "saw" Martin Johansson (Sweden) have a freak accident, and Thierry Gueorgiou (France), Anders Nordberg (Norway), and Michal Smola (Czech Republic) come to his aid.