Tartu anniversary rogain breaks participant record

On March 30th, Tartu hosted a jubilee-themed rogaining competition, which was the first event of the 10th season of Seiklushunt. While the previous record for Seiklushunt was held by the 2019 Tartu rogain with 454 participants, this time over 600 orienteering enthusiasts took part in the adventure.

“It’s great to see the increasing interest in orienteering and rogaining, and 10 years of work is bearing fruit. Orienteering is such a valuable field in many ways, developing our minds and senses as a skill – holding a map and navigating through the city, we don’t think about it, and that’s part of the charm of this sport,” explains the Tartu rogain course master Arvi Anton.

At yesterday’s rogain, the direct route through all points was about 28 km. In addition to the main course, there was also an option to complete a hiking loop, which was 10 km long this time.

The main course of the Tartu rogain had a control time of 3 hours and had control points numbered 31-75, totaling 219 points. The team NOBE, consisting of Martin Vilismäe and Sander Jürs, did an excellent job on the course, leaving themselves almost 16 minutes of time to spare! “First, we took the city and then the forest. Looking at the map, we didn’t have the question of what to skip – we included all the CPs and just ran through. We also got the trickier forest point (CP74) nicely. CP75 left a bit of regret, because we missed the cutting gap at the right moment and made an extra 100m loop,” explained Vilismäe their planning.

The second place was taken by the team Õnnevalem, consisting of Kaido Hallik and Eduard Taivere (210 points), and the third place went to the team Tramm with Madis Osjamets and Olari Orm (210 points). Since they collected the same number of points, the time came into play – and in terms of time, Õnnevalem surpassed Tramm by about 2 minutes. “The pre-info stated that the course was 28 km, and we thought that 25 km should be manageable for us – which meant skipping quite a few CPs. We looked for the sweeter, more numerous points, and since at some point we were ahead of time, we even took in a couple of points that we initially skipped,” commented Hallik on their strategy. Tramm’s downfall was CP74, which took nearly 10 minutes to find.

Among the women, the fastest team was Mannid, consisting of Mariann Sulg and Maris Terno, with a score of 181 points.

All results can be found at: https://seiklushunt.ee/…/uploads/2024/03/web/results.htm

The next STIHL x SH rogain will take place on June 1st in Paluküla, Kastre parish.