44th Tartu Maraton is a go with course changes

Official: 44th Tartu Maraton will take place, main events probably in Tehvandi, Otepää

If the next days won’t bring us a significant amount of snow, the main events of the 44th Tartu Maraton will take place in Tehvandi Sports Center instead of the original Otepää-Elva course.

Organizing Tartu Maraton in Tehvandi means that there will be a lot of changes in the programme. Races will take place on six kilometers long course covered with artificial snow. Marathon’s longer distance will be 34 and shorter 16 kilometers long. Therefore skiers who chose or choose the 34 kilometers long distance will ski five and the ones who will race at the 16 kilometers long distance will ski two laps (both events will have an extra four kilometers long lap at the end of the distance). At the start there will be eight classic trails and most of the course will have at least four classic trails.

The course will not have an infamous Tehvandi hill and course’s difficulty can be compared to the original course. "I think that the course isn’t too hard. I dare to say that this year’s 34 kilometers long distance in Tehvandi is easier than the first part of the original Otepää-Elva course," says Race Director Indrek Kelk. "Basically we only have one more rapid hill – Kunimäe," he added.

The 44th Tartu Maraton’s main events will take place during two days, from 25th to 26th of February, and there will be no separate start for the shorter race. "We will have three starts on both days, each start will have at least 600 participants," said Kelk.

As of 16th of February there are a total of 3698 participants registered for the main events. Registration is still open and can be done from here. Information about the Tartu Maraton will be updated currently on our homepage and Facebook page.

The race director’s video from the course with commentary can be seen here.