~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
By Keiran Gorsky
For Dylan Revells, there was something refreshing in the wide open terrain at this year’s Canadian Orienteering Championships in Alberta, in stark contrast to the thick wooded areas the 17-year-old has become accustomed to.
“The cows [were] grazing,” Revells recounts of the middle event snaking through the fields of Cooking Lake. “Normally, there’s not many signs of life, I guess, other than some squirrels.”
In orienteering, the patches of forest are marked by dark green streaks on sprawling topographic maps. Those slow-moving sections were quite prominent in Revells’ first forays into European competition this summer, where the sport is considerably more popular.
Revells competed in the European Youth Orienteering Championships in Brno, Czechia in July and then the aptly-named Bavarian Forest 5 Days event where he finished seventh in his age category. He treked back to Canada for a training camp ahead of the Aug. 21-25 nationals, where he won all three of his events.
In what is typical of a sport where age categories range from under-10 all the way to 90+, competitions for Dylan back home in Canada are often family affairs. In Alberta, the Orienteering Ottawa athlete competed alongside his mother Cherie and his younger siblings Lucy and Connor in a range of different courses. His father Mike didn’t race on this occasion, but often joins in too.
~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
Indeed, there’s an adventurer’s spirit that runs three generations through the Revells family. Cherie got her start in orienteering some 30 years ago at her high school in tiny Hillsborough, New Brunswick. Through her teenage years, she would traverse the country with her equally orienteering-crazed mother in a big brown station wagon. She continued on all the way through to her thirties, when Dylan was born.
“He loved looking at maps,” the elder Revells recalls, when she took her son orienteering for the first time. “He loved it from the get-go.”
A talented sprinter, Revells won’t turn down an ordinary foot race, though running by itself can grow a little stale. In orienteering, you can never slip into jogging tedium. Your eyes are always peeled on map and compass.
Those wide open fields of the middle race made for a pleasant change of pace, lending itself well to his foot speed. The lack of obstructing tree trunks and branches made for relatively easy planning between control points. Revells turned on the afterburners through the tall grass to win the race with a time of 42:53, eight-and-a-half minutes ahead of Calgary’s Gabriel Smith in second.
Out from partial wilderness, Revells’ favourite event was the sprint through the streets of Fort Saskatchewan. Sprint events trade forest settings for breakneck bolts between control points in close proximity, generally within city centres. Control points are comparably easy to track down, but the pace of the competition might force orienteers into silly, costly mistakes. Revells’ four opponents all lost precious seconds on suboptimal routes through the city.
“One control might only take you 30 seconds, so you have to constantly be looking at the map and planning without slowing down,” describes Revells, who runs cross-country and has competed at the OFSAA nordic ski championships for Lisgar Collegiate Institute.
His siblings were not originally so in love with the sport, though Lucy has reportedly grown into it. Cherie habitually tended to the outdoors in her small town with that same vigour children and teenagers of today seem to plaster themselves to screens. It’s been somewhat easier to keep her children outdoors, Cherie suggests, in a city teeming with green space.
“I think we’re very lucky in Ottawa that we have all these bike paths, the greenbelt and all the cross-country ski trails in the city,” she underlines.
Cherie won her sprint and long races in the female 45+ category while Lucy placed second in all three of her outings in the female age 13-14 division. Competitions serve as an opportunity for the Revells to meet up with their cousins and converse with what is an extraordinarily dedicated and amicable community.
The long distance race that capped the competition was far and away the most challenging. The course plunged competitors into those more familiar evergreen patches on their maps. At the worst of times, Revells recounts, proceedings slowed to a crawl through the dense forest. Athletes were made to push through all manner of unfriendly vegetation.
It was a chore for Revells, who didn’t have the luxury of sprinting to the finish line. On a more pleasant route, he might have sought ways weaving out of the woods.
“There’s just so much of it (forest),” Revells laments. “It’s not fun.”
Even so, he pushed his way through to cap off a perfect competition.
Also winning races from Orienteering Ottawa were Roy Boerschke, James Connell, Woodrow Connell, Daniel Mahoney and Henry Powell, while Sherlock Connell, Amanda Edmunds, Ewan Edmunds-Boerschke, Saskia Edmunds-Boerschke, Marketa Graham, Paul Lefebvre, Hayden Smith and Jon Torrance all earned podium positions in various classes.
Looking ahead, Revells recognizes the sizeable gulf between North American and European events, where races are filled to the brim with hundreds and hundreds of competitors who train every day. He remains committed to compete with the very best.
Unfortunately, next year’s Junior World Championships in Karlskrona, Sweden are smack in the middle of Revells’ final exam season at Lisgar. Revells is hoping to catch the 2027 edition in Poland while he remains eligible under the age of 20.
