Estonians Dominate at the European Rogaining Championships

Lauri Leppik - IRF Technical Manager / 27.07.2011

The 8th European Rogaining Championship were held near Rauna in Latvia last weekend and the event attracted 282 teams with 603 participants from 17 countries. The largest representation was from three hard-core European rogaining countries Latvia, Russia and Estonia, all represented by over hundred competitors. However, also represented were Ukraine, Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Spain, France, Czech Republic, Belarus, Sweden, Israel, Germany, Netherlands, UK and South Africa.

Event coordinators Valters Kaminskis and Aivars Zogla had merged the forces of two Latvian orienteering clubs, OK Ziemelkurzeme and OK Meridians, to cater for the event and participants. Aivars is already an experienced event coordinator, having organised rogaines in Latvia for several years. His multiple capacities from map-making, IT, web-site management, communication skills, to general coordination during the event, resulted in a smoothly organised event, where participants were treated like kings.

The course master, WRC bronze medalist in XO category Valters Kaminskis had placed 79 controls on the terrain, creating several different route options as evidenced by eventual route choices of teams. The terrain was a mixture of hilly forest, marshes and pastureland. The pass ability and visibility of the forest was often poor, requiring some careful navigation, in particular during the night. As a skilful rogainer himself, Valters very accurately predicted the speed of top teams and the winners score was 95% of the maximum.

In men’s open, Estonian teams collected all medals. The overall winners were brothers Silver and Rain Eensaar who scored 422 points from the maximum of 446. Their lead over the silver medal winners was an impressive 46 points. With this impressive victory they made a strong claim towards the upcoming World Championships in the Czech Republic and Russia. Their previous achievements have been 4th place at 8WRC2008 in Estonia and silver medals at 6ERC2009 in Finland.

Erik Aibast and Andreas Kraas scored 376 points and won silver, leaving Karli Lambot, Rait Pallo and T’Lillelaid as bronze medal winners. The mixed open and women’s open categories were dominated by Russian teams. Andrey Shvedov and Natalya Abramova scored 362 points and won the XO category (5th place overall), while the best WO team were Marina Galkina and Nina Mikheeva, who collected 303 points (27th place overall).

Full results with route choices at: <a href="#" onClick="javascript:newsitewindow('http://http://erc2011.rogaining.lv ')" class="main">http://erc2011.rogaining.lv</a>. The next European champs, 9ERC2012 will be held 5-6 May 2012 in Lithuania.