Athlete Profile: Graeme Rennie

What race are you looking forward to for 2018?

NAOC in the Yukon! Absolutely love orienteering up there and it has been too long since I’ve been.

When did you start orienteering?

As a small child, before I can remember.

What is your best orienteering memory?

Too many to count. Just for this year, it would have been racing on a snow-covered desert in central Washington with fog so thick you couldn’t see 20 ft.

What is your favourite type of orienteering event and why?

A good technical middle, I like it to be fast and technically challenging.

What’s the best orienteering advice that you’ve received?

Orienteering is a game of risk management. If you walk and take no risks you’ll make no mistakes, but you’ll have no chance of winning. Too much risks and you will lose too much time to mistakes. Best is to take the calculated risks you think you can execute and play it safe when you need to.

Who is your orienteering idol or inspiration?

This year I was particularly inspired by some local trail runners who would trash around in the thick west coast bush and pouring rain for at least 3 hrs at almost every race. But they kept coming back and kept trying to finish an elite course in under the cutoff time; most importantly they kept smiling.

What are some of your 2018 goals outside of orienteering?

Finally graduate from Electrical and Computer Engineering at UBC!

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Graeme R is a member of Orienteering Canada’s 2018 High Performance Program