Orienteering is in pursuit of media exposure.
The powers that be at the international level think that they need to be olympic, they think to do this they need media value. They keep inventing new types of race in order to try and appeal to the media.
Over the last 20 years the World Chamionships have become more and more devalued / dumbed down, with courses getting shorter and simpler all the time in the hope that they can be more easily televised.
Where once the race was 100 minutes for the winner through remote forest and encompassed every navigational challenge that could be thrown at you we now have 12 minutes running round a city park. Where the Men's realy was 4 legs of an hour now its 3 of half an hour, with talk of moving to mixed teams with shorter legs, possibly urban.
The sport is selling its sole in its attempts to interest the media, which they never will. The sport is far too esoteric.
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