The Orienteering Federation Singapore (OFS) is a not for profit sport association overseeing the development of orienteering in Singapore. We are a member federation of the International Orienteering Federation (IOF) who oversees the global development and key events such as the World Championships and World Cup.
With the endorsement of Sport Singapore, the OFS will serve as the representative body overseeing the sports’ growth and development.
VISION
Our Federation’s vision is to make orienteering a choice of sport that encompasses fitness with functional training.
Mission
Our mission / aim is to re-invent navigation as a sport.
Milestone
2020 – Singapore organises her first World Ranking Event (WRE)
2019 – Team Singapore participated in the Orienteering World Cup, Finals in China
2019 – Singapore’s first youth team is formed and takes part in the Asian Junior & Youth Orienteering Championships
2019 – Reinventing of Singapore’s housing estate as a possible Orienteering ground
2019 – Current OFS leadership awarded Event Advisor roles by the IOF
2018 – Team Singapore visits World Ranking Event in China, takes part in the Asian Orienteering Championships and partakes in the Asian Working Group Meetings
2018 – OFS is endorsed by Sport Singapore and the International Orienteering Federation (IOF) as the representative body in Singapore.
2017 – Visit by IOF Regional & Youth Development and World Orienteering Day founder, Göran Andersson who helped conduct an Educators’ Workshop
2016 – First OFS team to Visit Oringen Academy, Sweden (Birth place of Orienteering)
2015 – Visit by High Level Chinese Mapper, Shen JiaTu to Singapore
2015 – Collaborative partnership with Northbrooks Secondary School for the first ever National Orienteering Race targeted at school participants
2013 – Re-establishment of the Orienteering Federation Singapore.
History of the OFS
Orienteering had its presence in Singapore back in 1977 when the Swedish Orienteering Federation (led by Mr Peo Bengtsson) was on a promotional tour and made a stopover in Singapore. They invited Mr Victor Lam, who was then a Young Military Officer to run alongside them. After the event, the Swedish Orienteers felt that Singapore has good potential to do Orienteering and encouraged Mr Lam to start the sport here in Singapore.
In 1978, the Orienteering Federation of Singapore was first established. The team worked hard to spread the fun of orienteering through races which were conducted in various locations like the Singapore Botanic Gardens, and the National University campus. The good rapport finally paid off as the sport made headlines in the local press with the term “the ‘thinking sport”.
However, The high life of OFS was short-lived as the rapid development of Singapore’s economy saw the privatised of many land space into roads and buildings. Many green spaces were lost and coupled with the government’s focus on an information economy, the sport slowly lost its interest and was shelved aside into the archives.
To current times..
Fast track to the year 2013, a group of sport enthuse who were former members of Singapore Polytechnic’s Outdoor Adventure Club came together to discuss the possible ways in rekindling the spirit of outdoor adventure in the current youth. Orienteering came up onto the discussion board and both Alex Tan and Sebastian Wong thought that this sport would be an interesting “spice” to the already established running community in Singapore. Together, the duo rekindled Sports Orienteering with the rebuilding of the Orienteering Federation Singapore.
Both OFS founders worked hard to seek advice on the sport development and received much valuable support from key players in the international community that helped to kick start our growth.
We would like to give thanks to Mr Tom Hollowell (IOF CEO), Dr Ritter (SPORTident) and Mr Dominic Yue (IOF Council Member from HongKong) for lending their heavy weight support and guiding our young federation with much guidance into the global community.
The time could only be just right because within the same year, the Singapore’s Education Ministry called for a review of the Physical Education (PE) syllabus with more emphasis in outdoor education and its values. The component of outdoor navigation is now added into the standard teaching syllabus of a child’s education. Through the change in this directive, we hope that it would pave the road for more schools to come on board in having Orienteering as part of their lesson / activities.
The work didn’t just stop there and in 2015, we established our first major local orienteering race in the off-shore island of Pulau Ubin where we saw up to 500 runners take part in this milestone event. From then, the race events never stopped happening as this was our way in outreaching to the local community.
After those few years of hard work, in 2018 the OFS is accepted as a full member of the International Orienteering Federation and endorsed by Sport Singapore as the representative body of the sport.
To more Navi-adventures ahead!
#OrienteeringSG