Challenge Roth a yearly highlight

“Sorry Socke, this year we can’t cross the finishing line together!” Harald von Blumenthal, for the second time marathon runner in Memmert’s triathlon relay team 2, has ambitious goals. That’s why the handsome Bobbel vom Hohen Licht, which is the correct name of his canine friend, an athletic wire-haired elo dog, will miss out on the marvellous atmosphere in the Roth stadium this year. “Socke was simply too slow in the final sprint”, Harald von Blumenthal says a bit tongue-in-cheek. This is why the relay team with Peter Englisch as swimmer and Norbert Richter on the bike missed the 12-hour mark by 12 seconds last year. “But this year, we’ll do it”. As a minimum, the three of them have set themselves the goal of finishing under 12 hours, and of course each of them will be fully concentrating on finishing their particular part, frantically cheered on by the Memmert fan club.

One person who will be getting goosebumps when crossing the finishing line for the first time this year is Michelle Saim. In his day job, the 27-year-old Memmert employee works in customer relations for southern Germany but in his spare time, he is driven by the excitement for exercise, which he had to do without for a long time. When he was younger, he dreamt of becoming a professional footballer. He played for the youth teams of 1. FC Nürnberg with great enthusiasm. One day, his dream came to a bitter end when his shin was shattered. The prognosis of his doctors was devastating: “They told me it would be best if I gave up sports completely”, explains Michelle Saim. Still today, his leg is held together by plates and screws but after two years of complete abstinence from sports, he simply couldn’t bear it any longer. He began with some light jogging and started playing football in a team of amateurs. Before Saim came to Memmert, he had not been familiar with triathlon at all. Now, he took part in the regular shared training runs as often as he could, took part in a half marathon, and finally spontaneously volunteered when a marathon runner was needed for the third triathlon team. He has not set himself a particular goal for the finishing time of his first run over the full distance. “My main goal is to finish”, he says, smiling.

There is another new member in relay team 3 this year: Hanno Dietrich, who has been a business partner of Memmert for many years, becomes the first supplier to swim in the Memmert triathlon team. In the meantime, some customers have also expressed their interest. So we all hope that, in 2012, we will be able to go into the race with a Memmert customer relay team. Christiane Riefler-Karpa, Matthias Grosser and Mario Giurdanella will set off on the course on July 10th as individual starters. Relay team 1 consists of Andrea Weiss, Ronald Mühe and Carsten Angermeyer, team 2 of Peter Englisch, Norbert Richter and Harald von Blumenthal, and team 3 of our master painter Hanno Dietrich, Ralf Achtnicht and Michelle Saim.

We wish our athletes optimum conditions and the best of luck!