The third Memmert Rothsee Triathlon festival has made history yet again and, in our opinion, was a remarkable event - just like in past years. Traditionally, on Saturday, the day began with the classes for children and adolescents, followed by classes for the athletes of the German national league, who were fast as lightning - making the name 'sprint distance' fully justified. The occasional rain shower did not dampen the mood, which might also have been due to the delicious popcorn which our diligent trainees at the Memmert booth were handing out to spectators for free.
For the main competition on Sunday, the weather was at its best and the sun really let the athletes shine. As expected, Andreas Dreitz of Team Erdinger, who is meanwhile one of the world's best triathletes, especially over the middle-distance, was the uncontested winner of the day. He celebrated his third success at the Rothsee lake and is thus a great example for the continuing popularity of this traditional competition.
For others, it was their triathlon debut, which is another reason for the enormous popularity of the Rothsee event, where professional athletes and rookies start side by side. From Team Memmert, Mark Fischer (external sales), who has swam in the relay team a few times, did the full Olympic distance, i.e. 1.5 km swimming, 40 km cycling and 10 km running for the first time. It was obvious that he enjoyed it! Nina Kuhn (customer service) took part for the second time. "All good things come in threes," thought Benedikt Spangenberg (development) who was especially proud of his clearly improved cycling performance, finishing 81st (25:00-1:13:48-41:20/2:20:08h) out of more than 1,000 participants. From his club, only Matthias Grosser (technical management) with a total time of 2:09:00h (23:18-1:09:22-36:20) and professional athlete Sebastian Bleisteiner (20:16-1:08:52-36.33/2:05:41) were faster.
In the internal duel of our customisation department, Hannes Rupprecht was not only 20 minutes faster than in previous races (2:33:27h), he also managed to beat his 'boss' Gregor Stützinger (2:35:27h). The latter however, will not accept this result and will give his all when they both run the long distance at the Challenge Roth in two weeks.
Of course, several Team Memmert relays will also start. After two victorious years, this time our fastest team was caught by surprise by the strong competition and had to be content with finishing third. Next in the internal ranking was our customer relay of the company Labor-Pilz from Freiberg. Taking part for the first time, our 'Team Büchenbach' consisted of Mike Schuster (production), Peter Englisch (customer service) and Sebastian Paul (production). In the water, 'Team Schwabach' was supported by master painter Hanno Dietrich, before Jörg Leber (development) hopped on his bike. It was the first time he competed again after his stroke just two years ago, for which he deserves the greatest respect. Last but not least, team member Wolfgang Wenny ran the final 10 km to the finish line. Almost an 'established institution' as a team, Andrea Weiß (sales department) and our commercial director Jürgen Gambert were this time supported by Janina Bittmann (sales department) as the cyclist of the trio.
For a complete list of results, go to:
http://www.rothsee-triathlon.de/new_rothsee/
