Estonian national teams for world logging championships finalised
This
year’s last competition of the Estonian logging series took place during the
last weekend of August in Jõhvi, where the A and B teams for the World Logging
Championships were selected. Also, the Estonian champions – men and women with
the best forestry skills – were crowned.
The
winner in the tight competition was Taavi Ehrpais, securing a place in the
world championships.
The two days of the logging championships passed in a true summer heat. The
competition centre was in the city park of Jõhvi and the championships were
held at the same time as the local Forest Day family event. The national teams
from Finland and Lithuania participated as guests.
The felling contest on the first day was held at Luua Forestry School's
brand-new training centre, which offers excellent technical conditions. The
first prize went to Helvis Koort, the best in U24 category was Peeter Mitt, and
Karina Riive was the winner in women’s category. Peeter Mitt achieved the most
striking result in the second-day events when he hit the new Estonian record, 9.08
seconds, in replacing the saw chain. This is really a world-class result, a
result of quite a new calibre compared to previous ones.
The winner of the competition became known after the last event. It often
happens at logging competitions that you may become the overall winner without
winning any individual parts of the competition. The key is to achieve the most
stable results and the highest score in the overall standing. Taavi Ehrpais
succeeded in getting the overall score of 1640 by the end of the day. Janno
Mihkelson was the second with 1623 points and Tiit Reitel won the third prize with
1619 points.
According to project manager Mart Kelk, each competition offers surprises, and
that makes logging competitions spectacular and exciting. “Tiit scored an
excellent result,” said Kelk. “He has been in the competitions for many years
and has performed wonderfully in individual events. But this time he managed to
realise his potential and certainly finished with a very good score.”