10WRC2012 Estonian TV Interview with Open Male Winners

"The new world champions brothers Rain and Silver Eensaar gave an interview for Estonian television, talking about the sport of rogaining and their performance at the World Championships.The interview is in Estonian however you can at least see what Rain and Silver look like and get some rough idea about what the discussion was about:
http://sport.err.ee/teised_alad/videod/a5754853-97eb-4a24-b904-88475390c348


 Thanks to Eduard who used his contacts to arrange this interview." Editor-thanks also to Lauri Leppik for the recommendation.

 

Updated 13th September 2012 - Thanks to Lauri Leppik, IRF Representative for his transcript of the interview.

 

"World champions in rogaining present their sport

Q: It is my pleasure to welcome in the studio the world champions, Silver and
Rain Eensaar. Now, if I tell the discipline in which you have become world
champions, many have never heard about it. It is rogaine.

A: May be many people do not know, but on the other hand there are thousands, if
not tens of thousands of people who do know what rogaine is.

/Description of rogaining/

Q: How difficult the race was?

A: Quite difficult. The weather was rather cool and the terrain was quite
special for us, with relative heights between 500 and 1000 meters. For
Estonians these are quite high hills.

Q: Could you describe how the event elvolved. I understand that each was given a
map with checkpoints. How big the area was?

A: The area was about 300 square kilometers or 15 times 20 kilometers. On this
map one centimeter is 400 meters. The race started from the event center in the
middle of the terrain. During the planning phase for which there were 2 hours,
we had to plan a suitable route for us.

Q: Please show us which route did you choose.

A: We made first a loop in the middle of the map and then took a larger loop by
edges of the map. It was clear that to win the race one had to visit most
controls and hence we attempted to do so.

Q: Which was the most difficult part of the terrain, which required most serious
efforts.

A: On the eastern side there was a deep valley, where we had to climb about
200-300 meters up and down four-five times. However, the controls are spread
all over the map and you have to choose the most optimal route for the distance
which you plan to cover. We assumed that we will be able to cover a beeline
distance of 115 km, which corresponds to the real distance of about 150 km.

Q: These are unbelievable figures! And all this had to be achieved from noon day
one to noon day two. What where the most difficult moments? Did you feel tired?

A: You actually start to feel tired from the second hour of the race. The key
then is to have a constant supply of energy. We are eating energy gels and
energy bars, which are light and rich in energy. At earlier races we have also
made self-warming trekking food, but now we have developed further and no
longer need this.

Q: Did you get any rest during the race? I assume you could not sleep as this
was a competition and you had to move as fast as possible.

A: For the whole race, we stopped for about ten minutes to get water from
streams and to clean feet from small stones and mud, which is important to
prevent the formation of blisters.

Q: What makes this sport attractive for you? This discipline requires very, very
strong efforts. And this was not your first race.

A: This is the most direct encounter with the nature that you possibly can have.
In these days, it is not extraordinary to have 24 hour events. There are events
with even longer distances. Even Estonian ultrarunners run over 200 km by 24
hours, but they do so on the flat ground and on tracks, not in the forest. But
there are also adventure race world championships, where we participated last
year   this year we are not going   which last 5-7 days and during this a
distance of 600-700 kilometers is covered and only 1-2 hours sleep per 24
hours.

Q: So this is a discipline of iron men from which you have taken the title of
world champions. Are you going to defend your title next year?

A: Next year the event will be near Pskov, so it would be close to travel.

There is still free space on these prizes to write your names there for several
more times! Congratulations again and thanks for coming."