Rule change: The Finish

Planning
1

One for course planners and controllers.

The Rules of Orienteering have been updated for 2025 and one of the more significant changes is that “Navigate to finish” is no longer an option. Here’s what the rules say:
The route to the Finish from the last control must be taped for the whole route unless the Finish or the Finish funnel is clearly visible to the competitor from their last control.
In Purple Pen currently “Navigate to finish” comes up by default. So you have to change this. Click on the finish description and select the first of the three options, see the picture.

tapedroute
tapedroute342×231 7.44 KB

As well as this an advisory appendix says:
There should be a single, common last control, unless the requirements of the event dictate otherwise. This will ensure that competitors all approach the Finish safely from the same direction and will improve the flow of competitors through the Finish system. It will also ensure that competitors who have finished do not block access to the Finish for those coming from a different direction.
So that’s best practice rather than something essential.

Something else worth knowing - the rules also say:
As a minimum, the Finish should consist of one or more punch units, each with a control flag, with a prominent Finish sign that is clearly visible to the competitor.
So that says we should always be hanging a kite on the finish stake.

Hope that helps!

2

Save tape, just insert a ‘pre-finish’ control 5 metres from the finish control. Navigate to ‘pre-finish’ control, follow one bit of tape to finish. Job done!!
Imagine all the elite runners barging passed/tripping over all the W5s on their White courses…
How long before the planner has to tape all fallen/low branches that could be considered a trip hazard?!? Whatever happened to good old common sense!!?!!

3

I always though it a little strange how after many km of hard navigation it was assumed people would struggle to get from last control to finish so planners always were expected to make it an obvious leg. This makes it clear that it is just a speed leg not a nav one.
As for the worry of barging over little ones, I don’t think the rules prevent having more than one finish, just that all the courses using a particular finish have to share a common final control. So white to orange, for instance, could use one final control and finish and the rest could use a different final control to a different finish. And multiple finishes like that aren’t uncommon.