8th European Rogaining Championship 2011 Rauna, Latvia
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- Category: Championship Rogaines - WRC Qualifiers
- Published on Tuesday, 02 October 2012 07:41
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8th European Rogaining Championships were held 23-24 July 2011 near Rauna in Latvia. The event gathered 282 teams with 603 participants from 17 countries. While the largest representation was from three hard-core European rogaining countries Latvia, Russia and Estonia all represented by over hundred competitors, also represented were Ukraine, Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Spain, France, Czech Republic, Belorus, Sweden, Israel, Germany, Netherlands, UK and South Africa.
The course master, WRC bronze medalist in XO category Valters Kaminskis had put on the terrain 79 controls, creating several different route options as evidenced by eventual route choices of teams. The terrain was a mixture of hilly forest, marshes and pastureland. Passability and visibility of the forest was mostly reduced, requiring some careful navigation, in particular during the night. As a skillful rogainer himself, Valters very accurately predicted the speed of top teams the winners score was 95% of the maximum.
In men's open, Estonian teams collected all medals. The overall winners brothers Silver and Rain Eensaar 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 Tõnu Lillelaid bronze medal winners from 9WRC2010 New Zealand and 7ERC2010 Ukraine again on bronze.
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 Marina Galkina and Nina Mikheeva collected 303 points (27th place overall).