After melting spring weather over the last days the relief came tonight when minus degrees ensured a frozen and very firm track for the 46th Tartu Maraton between Otepää and Elva. The conditions have been as good, that the big winner of today, Niko Koskela (FIN), even skied a new record time on the 63-km -track. Maria Gräfnings, dominating the ladies competition, increasing her lead in the overall FIS Worldloppet Cup ranking.

Almost 5000 skiers were signed up for today's 46th Tartu Maraton & the 5th stage of the FIS Worldloppet Cup. The participants were coming from 36 countries all over the world, which is a new record for the Estonian Worldloppet race. The elite group was dominated by French and Swiss skiers - which is natural, for a FIS Worldloppet Cup stage - but also the local skiers showed, that slowly it's time for an Estonian winner in the Tartu Maraton. But not this year. This year another nation celebrated the first victory in Elva in the men's race and in the ladie's competition we followed a very strong Swedish victory-defender.

First Finn to win Tartu Maraton and setting up a record

Already in the dark morning hours everyone in the stadium of Otepää - the start of the Tartu Maraton - knew, today is a perfect day for a new record time. Frozen tracks provided perfect conditions for a fast race. And indeed, as expected, the competition was a tough and fast one. After the first intermediate sprint after 12 km, a group of 20 skiers was formed to lead this race. Among them the e-liberty Skiteam members and also the skiers from Jobstation Rossignol. They got strong company from Estonia, Finland and Switzerland. After some tactical playing around and several minor attacks, it was last year's winner Antoine Auger (FRA, e-liberty Skiteam) who made a major attack. Maybe 20 km to go he started to put pressure on the leading group and was breaking away. Suddenly he had created a gap of 30 seconds, so he decided to go on and grab the victory in the final intermediate sprint 15 kilometres before the finish. Only 6 km before Elva the chasing group was able to catch Antoine Auger, who was not willing to ski behind the group but remained working in front in the wind.

But then Auger had to pay tribute to his brave attack. The Finnish skier Niko Koskela, who made a lot of work in the chasing group, Mart Kevin Polluste (EST) and the French skiers Damien Tarantola & Loic Guigonnet started to fight for the victory on the last 2 kilometers, until finally, Damien Tarantola tried to make the final move just before the finish lane, but Koskela was able to counter-attack and he out-sprinted the French by 1,4 seconds. He now is the first Finnish to win the Tartu Maraton in history and also set up a new record time with 2:31:8,9! Tarantola finished 2nd, right before the Swiss Fabio Lechner, who claimed the 3rd podium place.

Agnellet Gerard (FRA, e-liberty Skiteam), who was skiing in the red bib, as FIS Worldloppet Cup overall leader had a very hard day today. It seems like he had to pay off for his good results in the first four FIS Worldloppet Cup stages. He always skied in the back of the leading group, but after the attack of Antoine Auger, he had to let them go. He finished 13th, with a 5:30 minutes gap, losing the red bib for now.

Tartu Maraton 2019 Results

Men

1. Niko Koskela, FIN

2. Damien Tarantola, FRA

3. Fabio Lechner, SUI

4. Corsin Hoesli, SUI

5. Bastien Poirrier, FRA

6. Loic Guigonnet, FRA

Full Results