World’s top loggers are coming to Estonia with the intention to win

The World Logging Championships take place in Tartu during the Rural Fair from 19–22 April. The best loggers from 22 countries will compete for the title.

The guests travelling the longest way to the championships in Tartu is the team of Japan. The closest teams are our neighbours from Finland and Latvia. The teams are primarily from Europe’s most forest-rich countries with decades-long traditions in forestry, professional skills and competitions.

The world championships bring the world’s top loggers to Estonia. In the run-up to the championships, we asked some of them about their thoughts and expectations.

The current world champion Marco Trabert, representing Germany, says his hopes are high – his goal is to finish in the top ten. Trabert has a good opportunity to achieve that: at the last World Logging Championships in Norway in 2018, he set a record, scoring a total of 1678 points in five events. “No one had ever won the world championships with such a high score, and I also hold the world record in limbing,” Trabert described his biggest achievements so far.

Ole Harald Løvenskiold Kveseth from Norway currently holds the second place in the world in logging. He hopes to see a world record also in Estonia, for example, in replacing the saw chain. Kveseth has a personal connection to this discipline, having set the world record in fitting another chain in 2010. What he is most proud of, however, is the result he achieved in limbing in front of his home crowd at the last world championships in Norway. “Considering the pressure and the atmosphere there, it was a result I am really satisfied with. Although I lost one second trying to fix a higher knot,” Kveseth says.

The Austrian team includes Mathias Morgenstern, who was crowned the junior world championin Switzerland in 2014. Having competed as a professional athlete for years, he is looking forward to the world championships. “Many years have passed since the previous competitions and it will be fun to see everyone again,” he says.

Morgenstern is placing his hopes primarily in the Austrian team. “I believe we can do well as a team this year; in the individual class you always have to have some luck as well. There are so many competitors competing at a very high level, and it is tough to get to the podium. Of course, I would love to, but I’m not really expecting anything. My biggest hope, the most important for me, is to compete well as a team. Anything beyond that is just extra,” Morgenstern says.

One of the most experienced contestants at the world championships is an old acquaintance of the Estonian audience. Jukka Perämäki, a fifteen-time Finnish champion, six-time Estonian champion and one-time Polish champion, started competing in logging in 1990. Jukka’s first World Logging Championships were in 1994 in Romania, where he won his first medal – the silver medal in fitting a new chain. Perämäki was a member of the Finnish team in 2012, when the team become the world champion.

The upcoming world championships in Estonia are the eleventh for Perämäki. Jukka says he always goes to competitions with the intention of winning. “I know I’m in good shape, but you always need a bit of luck to win a medal. There are almost a hundred fierce competitors and any of them can win. The best ones will be determined in the felling competition. If you fail there, it is difficult to rise higher in the rankings," he says.