HISTORY

Mountain bikes were invented by Americans already in the beginning of the eighties, but in Estonia the first bikes appeared only at the end of the nineties. The new type of bikes were well accepted but there was no suitable popular races.

In 1998 the time seemed to be right and taking an example from the famous Norvegian race Birkebeiner-rittet, the first Tartu Rattamaraton was organized. The race follows the course of Tartu (ski)Maraton. For the first years the distances were 63 and 31, just like in cross-country skirace Tartu Maraton. When the first Tartu Rattamaraton started on asphalt, soon the start was taken to a meadow. The aim of the race is to be suitable for every healthy person. The first and the biggest change in the history of Tartu Rattamaraton was done in the fall of 2006, when the distances grew to 87 and 40 km. The change was brought alive because of the grown quality of bikes, skills and training among the participants.

Before the first Tartu Rattamaraton many specialists were rather pessimistic about the success of this kind of a race. But despite that, already the first edition had over 1000 participants. Fast growth within the next years helped Tartu Rattamaraton to reach the level of Tartu Maraton (already 5213 paricipants in 2008) and despite a lot of compiting races in Estonia, none of them has reached such high numbers. As Latvia and Lithuania did not had similar races for a long time, the number of participants from those two countries grow annually.

Since 2002, Tartu Rattamaraton has belonged to the UCI calendar. That makes the race an international sport event. In 2009, exept of the traditional Estonian Championships, the European Champions in MTB Marathon were cleared up.

In 2017 a new distance of 21 km was added to the program.

• Winners

  1998	Alges Maasikmets	EST	Riina Toomis	EST
  1999	Andrus Aug	EST	Grete Pedmanson (Treier)	EST
  2000	Alges Maasikmets	EST	Riina Toomis	EST
  2001	Alges Maasikmets	EST	Grete Pedmanson (Treier)	EST
  2002	Sigvard Kukk	EST	Grete Pedmanson (Treier)	EST
  2003	Aleksejs Saramotins	LAT	Grete Treier	EST
  2004	Caspar Austa	EST	Grete Treier	EST
  2005	Aleksejs Saramotins	LAT	Grete Treier	EST
  2006	Jaan Kirsipuu	EST	Gunn-Rita Dahle-Flesja	NOR
  2007	Jaan Kirsipuu	EST	Laura Lepasalu	EST
  2008	Jaan Kirsipuu	EST	Ivanda Eiduka	LAT
  2009	Allan Oras	EST	Gunn-Rita Dahle-Flesja	NOR
  2010	Tanel Kangert	EST	Ivanda Eiduka	LAT
  2011	Tanel Kangert	EST	Maaris Meier	EST
  2012	Erki Pütsep	EST	Lelde Ardava	LAT
  2013	Erki Pütsep	EST	Dana Rozlapa	LAT
  2014	Andzs Flaksis	LAT	Janelle Uibokand	EST
  2015	Peeter Tarvis	EST	Liisa Ehrberg	EST
  2016	Andzs Flaksis	LAT	Lelde Ardava	LAT
  2017	Martins Blums	LAT	Katrina Jaunslaviete	LAT
  2018	Eimantas Gudiškis	LTU	Katrina Jaunslaviete-Kipure	LAT
  2019	Gert Jõeäär	EST	Janelle Uibokand	EST
  2020	Alo Jakin	EST	Janelle Uibokand	EST
  2021	Gert Kivistik	EST	Janelle Uibokand	EST
  2022	Gleb Karpenko	EST	Laura Lepasalu	EST
  2023	Antti-Jussi Juntunen	FIN	Merili Sirvel	EST
  2024	Gert Kivistik	EST	Mari-Liis Mõttus	EST