Estonians take clean sweep of all main Tartu Ski Marathon categories
Estonian skiers Christopher Kalev won Sunday's annual Tartu Ski Marathon, with Tatjana Mannima, also an Estonian, the fastest woman.
A total of 3,661 participants registered for the classical races, with 2,735 signing up for the full distance (63 km) and 926 for the half marathon, where both men's and women's events were won by local competitors too.
While temperatures have not been an issue this winter, a lack of snowfall had been, prompting event organizers to consider alternative routes. However, the regular route between Otepää and Elva went ahead on the day, as originally planned.
The top three finishers in the men's full event Sunday were separated by just 0.2 seconds.
Kalev said post-race that it had been: "Super cool! The course was very well prepared considering the scarce snow conditions in southern Estonia. Roos and I have battled a lot on the finishing straight in recent races and so far he's had the upper hand, but today there was still freshness left in my arms."
Kalev's time over the 63 km classical distance was two hours, 49 minutes and 57.4 seconds, and culminated in an extremely tense finish, with Kalev beating compatriot Henri Roos by just 0.1 seconds. Third place went to Czech competitor Fabian Stocek, who in turn finished one tenth of a second behind Roos.
The top three were followed by Albert Unn (+4:41), Raido Ränkel (+9:55), Andres Juursalu and Germany's Christian Winker (+10:46). Also finishing in the top ten were Estonians Kaspar Vaher (+15:20), Peeter Poopuu (+15:20) and Karel Tammjärv (+15:22).
Tatjana Mannima won the women's event, finishing in three hours, 26 minutes and 2.4 seconds, placing 64th across the whole field, men and women. Merilin Jürisaar was second, but a full eight minutes and 50 seconds behind the winner, while third placer Kaisa Rooba was nine minutes and 59 seconds behind Mannima.
Over the half-length distance, Simon Uibo crossed the finish line first with a time of 1:32:29.7 in the men's, and Emma-Luisa Pajur won the women's with a time of 1:54:24.4, which earned her 19th place in the overall field. Second was Elisabeth Astor (+0.4) and Marta Järviste (+1:05) also made it onto the podium.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Kristjan Kallaste
