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Kraft's suspension reduced
March 21, 2005, Valyermo, California
(slowtwitch news service™)
Nina Kraft, originally suspended for two years for a positive test for EPO, just had her suspension reduced from two years to one.
Kraft's lawyer, Dr. Peter Krause, argued successfully that the German Triathlon Union (DTU) never officially updated older rules to come into conformity with those of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
As a result, under existing DTU rules Kraft could not legally be given a longer sentence than the rules prescribed. Kraft will apparently be eligible to race again on November 12, 2005. As Ironman Florida is set to take place on November 5th of this year, Kraft will have to wait until early 2006 to take a shot at qualifying for the 2006 Hawaiian Ironman.
This is the second of two doping-related embarrassments the DTU has recently faced. It had to accept a "settlement" with Katja Schumacher, accused but not convicted per se of testing positive for testosterone at the 2004 German Ironman in Frankfurt. Schumacher agreed not to race until June, the German stating she would not be prepared to race until that date anyway.
On the plus side, in the wake of the Kraft affair the DTU has forged an agreement with its long distance athletes to come under the same out-of-competition testing regime as those in its Olympic program. Each long distance pro will pay 250 Euros toward such testing.
Were Kraft to buy a 2005 license she would presumably be obliged to pay the amount as well.
Stadler to open U.S. season at Wildflower
March 11, 2005, Mannheim, Germany
(slowtwitch news service™)
Ironchamp Normann Stadler will follow in the footsteps of Aussie Chris McCormack, and begin a North American season at Wildflower Triathlon.
Just as TriCalifornia race director Terry Davis succeeded in corralling the ultra-talented Aussie, Stader's rare appearances at North American races will get a bit more frequent, and American audiences will get a better chance to see the 2004 Hawaiian Ironman champion in action.
Stadler has not exhibited the range of McCormack, however, and fans should not expect too much of this ultra-distance specialist. Just as Peter Reid has not found Wildflower his specialty, Stadler may also find it hard to race the half-Ironman distance in something close to four hours flat—the time it always takes to win California's Central Coastal epic.
That said, Americans will want to get a closer look at the first man to win Kona during the bike leg since John Howard did so in 1981. Whether Stadler finishes first or twenty-first, he's certain to be a draw.
The German's foray into the North American tri racing scene might also help him gain visibility, and with it the chance for new sponsors. Earlier this year Stadler spoke with brutal honesty and, some thought, insensitivity when his achievements ranked below those of a paralympic German athlete in a poll taken of German press reporters. While his bike sponsor, Kuota, stood fast, Stadler's on the hunt for an apparel sponsor.
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The Norminator places talented foot in mouth
January 4, 2005, Frankfurt, Germany
It's national news in Deutschland. The Hawaiian Ironman champion from that country suffers public disgrace. No, not Nina Kraft. This time it's the men's winner, Normann Stadler.
The dust-up started in an interview published on January 2, 2005, conducted by the large, well-regarded Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper. Both Stadler and Thomas Hellriegel were the subjects of the interview. The reporter asked, "Are the athletic achievements of triathletes appropriately recognized by the public?"
Hellriegal answered by referencing a popular and influential year-end ranking of athletic achievements in Germany—conducted by German sports journalists—and stated that he was third after his 1997 victory in Kona, behind Jan Ullrich and Lars Riedel. This year, however, Hellriegel pointed out that Stadler's victory only netted him ninth in the voting.
Stadler then continued by voicing his bitter disappointment. "I cannot say anything against Schumacher," he said, "I am a huge motorsports fan." And then Stadler continued down the list of those voted in front of him, opining on whom he felt belonged in front of him and who didn't. There were two unwise selections, thought Stadler, a gymnast who placed seventh in the Olympics, and a paralympic champion, Wojtek Czyz, who was voted fifth by journalists among Germany sportsmen in 2004.
Stadler stated that there should be a separate category for paralympic athletes, that he toiled for 17 years in order to gain his Hawaiian Ironman victory while Czyz has only been a paralympic competitor for two years. Stadler further stated that Czyz' ranking had much to do with Germany's chancellor, Gerhard Shröder, embracing Czyz after his paralympic victory.
While the entire interview was enlightening and touched on many subjects, the German press lept on this particular exchange, led by the newspaper "Bild" which, according to some in the German multisport press, was guilty of "yellow journalism" in its inflammatory reporting of the event (Bild is generally considered part newspaper, part sensationalist tabloid).
The dust-up went national, with Chancellor Schröder himself biting on Bild's bait and reprimanding Stadler. A national debate has since ensued over whether Stadler's comments were thoughtless, or whether the problem is in the way German Sports journalists rate and categorize athletic achievements.
Stadler's club, though no doubt proud when their star won the race in Kona, has suspended him.
All agree, however, that Stadler's words were impolitic. "Normann just said what thought, and might have been too blunt," said Jürgen Zäck according to one German multisport reporter.
In the interim Stadler has been working overtime to clarify and retract. He has since spoken directly to Czyz, and they reportedly will work together on a charity during 2005. Stadler also pledges moneys to be earned from the upcoming Ironman Germany toward an organization for the physically challenged.
Ironically, it appears it is the physically challenged community in Germany that is coming to Stadler's defense. He has reportedly received a lot of emails from them, saying they understand what he meant to say and respect him for it, and wish for a dialogue on this subject. Also, it is reported that Frank-Thomas Hartleb, director of the physically challenged sports federation in Germany, is going to pursue the idea of a dual-track nationwide sports achievement election, one for able-bodied, one for physically-challenged.
Also ironic is Zäck's defense of Stadler. Though Zäck has both publicly and privately been his vocal champion, taking the former World Duathlon Champion under his wing for several years running, the interview in the Frankfurter Allgemeine uncovered a one-time rift between the two. Stadler says he overheard Zäck in an adjacent room making what he thought were disparaging remarks about him the night before the race, and confronted the legendary German triathlete about it, saying "Tomorrow I'm going to kick your ass."
Unfortunate is the overshadowing of an otherwise excellent and revealing interview. It starts with the reporter asking, "With what topic shall we begin the discussion," followed by Stader's one-word reply: "Doping." The interview then commences with what might be the most revealing and transparent discussion on the subject ever staged with top triathletes.
(Thanks to Kai Baumgartner of the premier German multisport site 3athlon.de for his help in steering Slowtwitch.com to the important sources for this report.)
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Leder, Kraft take Quelle Challenge Roth
July 15, 2001, Roth Germany
Germany's Lothar Leder continued his domination of the world-famous iron-distance course in Roth, Germany, scoring his third win in a row (and fourth total) at Sunday's race. It was the debut of the Quelle Challenge Roth, the former Ironman Europe now being organized without the World Triathlon Corporation franchise. The race is staged on the course where Leder became the first man to break the eight-hour barrier in 1996.
Leder stayed in touch with the leaders on the swim and bike, eventually overtaking bike leader and countryman Thomas Hellriegel at the 16k mark on the run, according to accounts on the race website, http://www.challenge-roth.com. This despite Hellriegel's blazing bike ride--a 4:24:05, the day's fastest. Only Leder (in 4:30:59) and American Steve Larsen (in 4:31:24) came close.
Hellriegel was then passed by a fast-closing Cameron Brown of New Zealand, who caught him with just a few kilometers to go with the day's fastest marathon, a 2:49:29. "Second here is awesome; it's a great field," Brown told Triathlon New Zealand's Ian Hepenstall. "But it was Lothar's day today."
In fourth was Germany's Andreas Niedrig, with Finland's Mika Luoto in fifth. Luoto's run was another scorcher, a 2:50:54 that helped run him into the top five.
Larsen, who found himself down to the leaders by as much as six minutes out of the water, faded to sixth on the run after a strong bike.
Germany's Nina Kraft defended her title in Roth, too, dominating the rest of the field by nearly 20 minutes. Top Hungarian duathlete Erika Csomor, the current European and world champion, was second. She gave up nearly 10 minutes to the leaders on the swim, but ran herself into contention with the day's fastest marathon, a 3:01:38. Germany's Nicole Leder took third, with Canada's Gillian Bakker in fourth and Germany's Ute Mueckel in fifth.
(RESULTS)
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Quelle Challenge signs top stars for 2002 debut
November 21, 2001, Roth Germany
It only makes sense that Quelle Challenge will get the best Ironman-distance athletes. While those out of Kona's top-10 must use their legs up in an Ironman to requalify, Kona's best do not. Germany's Thomas Hellriegel (third in Kona), Andreas Niedrig (seventh), and New Zealand's Cameron Brown (second) are all signed up for the first Quelle Challenge Roth, to be held on July 14, 2002. The race has previously been Ironman Europe, but race organizers decided to go off on their own, without a WTC sanction, after 2001. Markus Forster, at 21-years-old a huge talent, is also signed up for Roth. He placed 14th in Kona this past October.
Cameron Brown has had success in Roth before. He finished third in his first race in Roth this year, before his stunner in Hawaii. Brown will not take part in any other long-distance race in Europe next year. Right after his first race in the European stronghold of triathlon, Brown had announced that he could imagine starting at the Quelle Challenge Roth. Now the athlete from New Zealand, who is very popular with the spectators in Roth, put this expression of support for the new event into practice. With his application he is the first foreign top star on Roth's list of participants.
The women's competition will feature German Nina Kraft, who was third in Kona. She'll be challenged by triathlon legend Paula Newby-Fraser, who still holds the world record established in Roth in 1994 (8:50:53). Newby is finding her old form again with a fourth place finish this year in Hawaii. Also racing will be this year's Ironman Canada champion, Gillian Bakker.
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Zäck abuses another man's queen, then laughs
September 3, 2001, Solana Beach, California
Jürgen Zäck met the best in the world earlier this year and, after a hard-fought struggle, fell victim to a superior talent. It wasn't the first time. You win a few, you lose a few. As no small consolation, however, Zäck got to abuse the champion's queen before going down to defeat.
It should be noted that in this particular case the five-time Ironman Europe champion didn't expect to win. He just hoped not to acquit himself honorably.
Zäck was in nearby Mainz during the last week of June to meet Viswanathan Anand in the field of battle. Anand is the FIDE world champion in chess. Anand was in Mainz to meet his arch-rival Vladimir Kramnik of Russia.
Earlier in the week Anand played against 40 opponents simultaneously. Twenty were players with FIDE scores of 2000 or better (in triathlon terms, that means they all qualified by virtue of their ability, as Ironman winners in their own right). Fifteen more earned their way through chess's equivalent of "the lottery," except their slots went to the highest bidders (about $500 each).
The final five were specially-honored invitees. One was the mayor of Mainz, who is an avid chess player. Another was Professor Eckhard Freise, who was the first to go all the way in Germany's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and is himself a player with an FIDE score of 2300 (Anand has the world's third highest score, at about 2700). Zäck was another of the five. He does not engage in tournament play.
What was Zäck's anxiety level prior to the start?
"About the same as just before Hawaii."
Was Zäck able to meet Anand prior to the match?
"Yes. He travels with an entourage. Not bodyguards, mostly press people. They had never heard of the Ironman. As soon as they heard about me, and it, they immediately raced off to file press reports for the Indian newspapers. They were astounded that people actually race that distance.
Anand played white, as is customary in these matches. He opened with pawn to king-4. Zäck countered with pawn to king-4, at which point Anand moved knight to queens-bishop-3. Was he playing Ruy Lopez?
"Hey, I don't know. I just play. My goal was to go 20 moves. At the twelfth move he gained a points advantage, as I lost a bishop to his pawn. But I had a better position.
"Then we traded queens. I took his first. I held it up, and shouted, sort of a victory salute. That became the caption, and this was in all the biggest German papers. What they wrote was a double entendre, which basically means––in one way––that I abused his queen, and then laughed about it.
"But really, it was an unbelieveable feeling, like the time when I was just starting out in triathlon and I passed Dave Scott on a training ride.
"At 30 moves I was feeling good. But of course I never had a chance. I lasted 51 moves, and only 5 players out of the 40 lasted that long.
"Nothing I did this year got so much coverage. Winning Ironman Austria didn't get me this kind of coverage. Big articles in every big German newspaper."
What did Anand thing of Zäck?
"He said, 'I could really tell Zäck is an Ironman athlete. He was tenacious, and he wouldn't give up.'"
"I was such a thrill," said Zäck, "I couldn't sleep at all that night after the match."
Zäck fares a bit better when he stays inside the sport of triathlon, and that goes for his chess playing as well. He and sometime triathlete––and former American 5000M record holding runner––Greg Whitely were scheduled to play a series of five games for $250 per game. Zäck won the first two, Whitely the third, at which point Whitely apparently––says Zäck––decided to stop any potential further bleeding and called it a day.
As for the Anand exhibition, there is also the interesting case of Professor Eckhard Freise, the guy that won the million dollars on TV earlier in the month. He was one of the two who beat Anand that day. Not bad for a month's work.
Coverage of the Mainz Chess Classic can be found online can be found on various online chess sites, including Chathurangam.com, and Frankfurt Chess Tigers.
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Brush off antique format for Gaag v Lessing
August 3, 2001, Graz, Austria
It's a case of back to the "good old days" of triathlon at the ETU European Cup at Schliersee in southern Germany on Saturday, with a star-studded elite field that features two former world champions slugging it out: Simon Lessing of Britain and Kazakhstan's Dmitri Gaag.
The ETU European Cup series resumes with its fifth race of the year over the 1.5km swim, 40km bike and 10km run at Schliersee. The racing will be in the old style—no drafting will be permitted during the cycle section, which takes the triathletes high up into the mountains. The bike-to-run transition is halfway up the Spitzigsee.
Four-time world champ Lessing won the previous ETU European Cup race in Hannover last month, although he is not the leading Briton in the series—that is Welshman Richard Jones, who is placed fourth, one place behind 1999 world champion Gaag. Germany's Torsten Abel, fifth-ranked in the 2001 ETU European Cup, is also in the Schliersee field for what promises to be a grueling test of all-round ability.
The other star name in the strong men's field is Eric van der Linden of the Netherlands, bronze medalist in the recent European Championships.
The ETU European Cup series offers triathletes the chance to win 9,000 Euros for first prize overall, in addition to cash offered at each individual race. Triathletes' best scores from five races during the season will be counted through to the final in Alanya, Turkey, in October.
Things are getting very serious in the women's ETU European Cup series, and Schliersee has attracted six of the top eight women in the standings, led by Australia's Tracy Hargreaves, winner of last month's race in Sopot and runner-up in Hannover to Annie Emmerson of Britain, who is also in the field.
Anja Heil is sure to give the local German crowd plenty to cheer about, but the pre-race favorite could be New Zealander Evelyn Williamson in her first outing in the ETU European Cup series this season since her excellent ninth place in the recent World Championships in Edmonton. (Thanks to the ETU for this report.)
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Lessing back in top form
July 9, 2001, Graz, Austria
Britain’s former world champion, Simon Lessing, showed he is coming into top form at just the right time as he powered to victory in the ETU European Cup race in Hanover on Sunday.
Annie Emmerson, recent winner of the bronze medal at the ETU European Championships, made it a British double in Germany by winning the women’s race, and moved to the top of the standings in the European Cup series.
For both Lessing and Emmerson, it was their last race before flying to Canada for the World Championships in Edmonton later this month.
Lessing led from the gun. He was first out of the water, then rode snuggled safely in a large lead pack during a rainy bike leg.
Like Mark Allen before him, Lessing has exceptional running ability for a big man. Although he stands over six feet tall and weighs close to 160 pounds, he runs with the grace and ease of an elite runner forty pounds lighter. He powered away from his rivals during the final 10k, which included Dmitri Gaag, who beat Lessing to the world title in 1999, and Jan Rehula, the Czech Repubic’s Olympic bronze medallist making his return to Olympic distance racing following an horrific training accident earlier this year.
“I expected the race to come down to the run today,” Lessing, four times a past world champion, said. “Under difficult conditions, the race was good.”
In her race, Emmerson gave the early leaders nearly a two-minute lead out of the swim, as a lead pack of seven formed around Germany’s Anja Heil, Lenka Radova, from the Czech Republic, and two other Britons, Heather Williams and Jessica Harrison.
But Emmerson’s aggressive riding began to close the gap, giving her and Australia’s Tracy Hargreaves a deficit of one-minute on Heil going into the run, which the in-form Briton made up comfortably within three kilometres of the 10km finishing leg, with Hargreaves following her home in second.
(RESULTS)
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Another Cierpinski has a nose for the finish tape
January 12, 2001, Sydney, Australia (www.slowtwitch.com):
In perusing the results of Germany’s Top 4 Tour last year, a particular name stood out. Not because he’s a famous triathlete – at least yet -- but because the world has heard of that distinctive last name before. The athlete was Falk Cierpinski, and yes, he comes from lineage heralded in endurance sports circles. His father, Waldemar Cierpinski, went from being a somewhat obscure steeplechaser to Olympic gold in the marathon in 1976 – only two years after his first attempt at the distance. He followed that performance with another gold 4 years later, the first double-gold medalist in the marathon since Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila.
Don’t think son Falk is blessed only with a famous last name. He was the European Junior duathlon champion in 1998, and in the Top 4 Tour’s duathlon leg – 65R, 24kB, 3kR – the younger Cierpinski finished second to Australia’s Jarrod Brauer. He beat, among others, Dmitri Gaag, Reto Hug, Lother Leder, and Rasmus Henning.
Where is Cierpinski now? In Brauer’s home country. He spent the winter (Australia’s summer) in Brisbane. While Brauer is training with Col Stewart’s group for the Australian Ironman, Cierpinski was a few miles away training with Aussies Levi Maxwell and Bryce Quirks. Now Cierpinski’s moved down to Sydney, with top Aussie duathlete Trent Munson.
Although Cierpinski loves the short course, he intends to eventually move up to the Ironman. "But not this year," he says. "I will wait until I can race this distance proper. The years before I was always saying that I will never race an Ironman because I like the action on the Olympic distance. But my thinking has changed. I think you have to race an Ironman -- and you have to race Hawaii one day -- before you are a complete triathlete. Like Greg Welch did, and Lothar Leder is doing now -- racing both distances is the greatest. But the next months – and maybe years -- I have to concentrate on changing from a duathlete to a triathlete. And, because a lot of people say that I will never do it proper, I will ever try harder!"
As for the elder Cierpinski, "My dad is looking back on a few month of hard work. In October he opened his 4th sport shop in East Germany. It is his biggest shop with 2500 square meters on 3 floors. The name is Olympic City <http://www.sporthaus.com>. Two years ago he really did his first triathlon in a fun race in Halle/Saale. He was racing well and everybody was happy that he was coming out of the water and that he was still alive. I think he felt better on land."
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Otto's condemned coach had triathlon ties
September 11, 2000, Leipzig, Germany (from German correspondent Dirk Kantlehner for www.slowtwitch.com):
When German swim coach Stefan Hetzer was ordered on Wednesday to pay a 15.000 DM fine (about US$7000) for his court conviction on doping charges, the Deutsche Triathlon Union took immediate steps to distance itself from him.
Hetzer was, until January, the DTU's coach for swimming. But his contract was not extended, DTU team manager Henning Mueller announced in a press release last Wednesday. The DTU statement said that Hetzer did not want to leave Bavaria, where he lives in Burghausen, for Saarbrücken, where the DTU is developing a national training center.
Hetzer became the first coach in Germany convicted for "doping" a former world class athlete. The judgment came in the district court of Leipzig, where Hetzner confessed to supplying Kristin Otto, winner of six Olympic golds in Seoul in 1988, and otheres with illegal performance-enhancing drugs between 1985 and 1989.
Otto, 34, is the most prominent athlete from the former GDR (German Democratic Republic) on a list of nine swimmers who trained under Hetzer. She reiterated last week that she did not knowingly take any drugs. She will be at the Sydney Olympics next week providing commentary on swimming for ZDF, the German television broadcaster.
Hetzer's conviction is for causing bodily injury. He was ordered to pay 100 marks for 150 days in a row.
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Witten wins, but men's race is voided
August 22, 2000, Witten, Germany (by correspondent Dirk Kantlehner for www.slowtwitch.com):
Saturday's fifth and final stage of the German Bundesliga ended up a "non-event" for the men's teams, whose results were voided after most of the field started too soon -- and 15 other triathletes, left behind, refused to start at all.
The 15 triathletes -- including Germany's Andreas Niedrig and Arnd Schomburg, and Australia's Craig Cunningham -- stayed back on the starting line when all the others jumped the gun, minus any starting signal. Thinking that marshalls would call them back, the 15 waited for the race to be recalled. When that didn't happen, as the rest of the racers swam away, they simply did't start.
There was, of course, no chance of catching the swim leaders. It appeared that the voidance of the results reflected poorly on not just the athletes, but the DTU marshalls as well.
After the men's race was finished, the marshalls agreed to void the entire results. Rather than count five races toward the Bundesliga championship, they counted only the first four. That still left the "hometown team," PSV Witten, with the title.
PSV Witten also won the women's title. That race, which followed the men's, went off as usual. PSV Witten's Susanne Nielsen was the winner in 2:10:42, with Leanda Cave (SC Riederau) second and Yvonne Krömker (Sport Aktiv Paderborn) third.
The bike course consisted of four hilly loops. Ute Schäfer (Tria Echterdingen) built a one-minute lead off the bike, into the run. But Nielsen kept her within sight and was always confident she would catch her.
"I knew I was strong today and I believed in my running," Nielsen said of winning the race for the second straight year.
Denmark's Nielsen has a winning reputation within Bundesliga, and her teammates helped the club to the title once again. Ina Reinders (fourth), Kirsten Molloy (eighth) and Kerstin Lohmeyer (12th) completed the sucess for Witten. In the end -- minus counting the men's fifth race -- it was double victory for PSV Witten.
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German women protest unequal money at Champs
July 1, 2000, Immenstadt, Germany (www.slowtwitch.com):
Nine German female triathletes, protesting unequal prize money, are calling for a boycott by all women for the German Middle-Distance Triathlon Championships on July 22.
"We hope that no women will participate in this race," reads a public letter signed by the nine women, including Katja Schumacher, Anja Dittmer and Joelle Franzmann. "Now we are frustrated with the race director's response, as he thinks it's right to pay unequal prize money. We hope that, in the future, the performances of female triathletes will be valued equal to the men's."
The letter was made public after triathletes approached German Altenreid, organizer of the Allgaeu Triathlon (2k swim, 92k bike, 21k run). Altenreid has not budged from his prize structure, which pays three places to women and 10 places to men.
The women are paid DM 2500, DM 1000 and DM 500. The men are paid DM 6000, DM 4000 and DM 2000 for the first three places, plus more through 10th (DM 200).
Say the women: "Triathlon is a modern, fair sport. We don't even know why we have to explain why we think that men and women should be treated equal. That was written into our national constitution on 23.5.1949.
"We are very disappointed in a race organizer who discriminates against women."
The rest of the letter reads:
"The female winner trains for and works as hard in the race as the male winner to win the title German Champion. We are professionals and, if one of us goes to a store to buy a liter of milk, we pay the same as any men. There is no justification for unequal payment in the sport. It gives the sport of triathlon a negative image, which can't be in anybody's interest, especially not for sponsors.
"Long before we wrote this public letter, we have talked to Herr Altenried, the organizer of the Allgaeu Triathlon and this years German-Championships Middeldistance. He expressed his opinion, that it is correct to pay prize money for women: 1. 2500,- 2. 1000,- 3. 500,- and for men 1. 6000,- 2. 4000,- 3. 2000,- 4. 1200,- 5. 900,- 6. 700,- 7. 500,- 8. 300,- 9. 200,- 10. 200,-
"Athletes need good races and race organizers need great performances. Professional triathletes train hard and race for good performances and top results. Race organizers like Herr Altenried take away the oportunity for women to make triathlon a profession.
"It is our goal to get the same prize money for the top 3 men and women. We don't have a problem with steeper stagering after third place. This was also Monika Birk's proposal, in her function as women's representetive for the DTU. Only equal opportunities for both men and women will give women the chance to participate at elite levels.
"All the athletes who have signed this protest will boycott the German Championships in Immenstadt. We call for a gereral boycott. We hope that no women will participate in this race.
"We hope that in the future. the performances of female triathletes will be valued equal to the men's."
Katja Schumacher, Heidelberg
Ute Mueckel, Haagen
Ines Estedt, Neubrandenburg
Joelle Franzmann, Saarbruecken
Nina Fischer, Kiel
Anja Dittmer, Neubrandenburg
Nina Kraft, Braunschweig
Birgit Rossberg, Seligenstadt
Christiane Pilz, Rostock
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Andreas Niedrig: From Junkie to Ironman
June 1, 2000, Stuttgart, Germany (www.slowtwitch.com):
(Correspondent Frank Wechsel, editor of the DTU's triathlon magazine in Germany, made this report):
One of the most frequently discussed subjects in triathlon is the topic of "drugs and sport." But this week, this phrase takes on a new meaning with the life story of Andreas Niedrig, a 28-year-old German elite triathlete.
Little was known about Niedrig's personal history when he finished fourth and third the last two years at Ironman Europe in Roth, Germany. Even in Kona, home of the Hawaii Ironman, he became known only as one of triathlon's best swimmers, when he came out of the water first and ultimately finished fourteenth.
When journalists asked him at the finish line where he came from, he only answered: "I smoked a lot in the past." Not even Germany's most astute triathlon journalists had an idea of the former life of this top athlete, who posted one of the top-5 fastest Ironman times in the world last year, 8:03:54. Until this week, that is.
Today, June 1, a 47-year-old former German policeman, Jörg Schmitt-Kilian, published his 170-page book, "From Junkie To Ironman: The Two Lives of Andreas Niedrig."
The real story of Niedrig's life is dark -- dark as dark can be. "I am lucky to be married," Niedrig says in the book's early pages. "A marriage that survived everything ... cannot be destroyed by anything anymore."
With these lines Niedrig starts recounting the story of his life. Familiar themes surround the beginnings of his drug career : When Niedrig was 14, he was bored with school, joined a clique, and started to smoke. Nicotine became marijuana, marijuana became cocaine, cocaine became heroin.
Niedrig uses the book to talk about his life as a junkie -- the way he got the drugs and the money, his encounters with police and the justice system. He talks also about his long and difficult path to becoming clean, and how his daughter made him feel responsible for the first time in his life.
He also writes about his relapse back into the circle of drugs. and his relapse to the drugs. When the doctors told him in 1989 that his leg should be amputated, he answered: "I don't care ..."
The same year, he tried to commit suicide - several of his "friends" had died from drugs. But finally, emerging from the darkness of drugs, Niedrig started in a drug therapy program.
In 1993, when Niedrig was 25 years old, he started to run. He ran more and more, and that October he finished his first triathlon. Four years later,in 1997, he qualified for the Hawaii Ironman, where he finished 17th ... without any drugs.
Der Spiegel, one of the largest and best-respected weekly news magazines in Germany, published a four-page article aboiut Niedrig and the book in the current issue. "There will always be athletes who cross the finish line in front of Niedrig," Der Speigel writes. "But to some of them, he will never pass a hand ... because he knows that they used drugs to reach their goals."
The story of Andreas Niedrig is a true story that touches the heart. And it is a story that perfectly fits with the Ironman theme: "You can get everything ... If you really want it."
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Dittmer, Unger take Top 4 Tour titles
May 30, 2000, Aidlingen, Germany (www.slowtwitch.com):
Germany´s Anja Dittmer, confirmed for the Olympics, and compatriot Daniel Unger, a 22-year-old who has trouble believing he beat ``all those big names,´´ took the individual titles for the Top 4 Tour, which finished Sunday with a duathlon in Aidlingen, near Stuttgart.
Dittmer´s difference after four races in four days over Joelle Franzmann, who is also one of Germany´s Olympians, was 1:43 after three hours, 52 minutes and 53 seconds of racing in the four stages since Thursday. But for men, the winning margin was much less - a mere two seconds between Unger and Denmark´s Rasmus Henning.
Both Unger and Henning, 24, were making their first Top 4 Tour appearances. The race gathered 27 men´s teams and 13 women´s teams, each with four racers. By going 1-2 overall, they upstaged better-known triathletes such as Switzerland´s Reto Hug, last year´s overall winner, ex-world champ Dimitry Gaag, the Tour leader after two days, and German favorite Lothar Leder.
``I just can´t believe I won, especially with everybody else here," said Unger, who raced for Asics Team Witten. ``I was hoping only for a top-10 finish.´´
Henning left Saturday's race, a team time trial, thinking he had a 40-second cushion after three stages. But a protest by another team about Henning's teammate, Jan Hansen, resulted in a 15-second penalty for the PowerBar-Roy Sports athletes, which was imposed before the start of Sunday's duathlon. That meant Henning had just 25 seconds on the field to work with.
Unger, a military triathlete who also races for Asics Team Witten, won for his consistency. He had finished sixth, third, fourth and third in the four races, quietly rising to the top. Henning lost his lead when he finished 14th and off the pace. ``I am actually pleased with getting second overall,´´ Henning said.``I have to look at it that way.´´
The day was dominated by Australia´s Jarrod Brauer, whose breakaway on the bike helped him to the overall win in the race of 6k run, 24k bike, 3k run. ``No one came with me, so I said stuff it, I´m going for it alone," Brauer said. Second place, 42 seconds back, went to Falk Cierpinski, followed by Unger.
Dittmer´s win was less dramatic, but just as pleasing for the woman who will now turn her focus entirely to Olympic preparation. She finished fifth in the duathlon, but that was still fast enough to retain the lead she had established on the first day.
``Maybe it looked easy, but it wasn´t easy,´´ Dittmer said. ``It was very, very hard. I was tired, but I also knew the other girls were tired, too.´´
New Zealand´s Fiona Docherty -- like Brauer racing for the first time in the Top 4 Tour -- was the surprise of the field on Sunday. She led both runs, leaving second place to Switzerland´s Nicola Spirig and third to Germany's Nicole Leder.
(RESULTS)
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Gaag's team woes reshuffle Top 4 Tour
May 27, 2000, Geislingen/Steig, Germany (www.slowtwitch.com):
Kazakstan's Dimitry Gaag dropped to fifth overall in individual standings after the third stage of the Top 4 Tour -- the most team-oriented race of all, when his clubmates took a wrong turn in the team time trial.
Denmark's Rasmus Henning assumed the overall individual lead -- and Gaag dropped to fifth -- going into Sunday's final stage, a duathlon (6k run, 24k cycle, 3k run) at Aidlingen.
Saturday's event was an 18-kilometer team time trial over three city-center laps in Geislingen/Steig, The 13 women's and 27 men's teams left at four-minute intervals through the afternoon to determine team results for the stage. Teams were ranked according to the finishing time of their third of four racers.
This is the third year that the team time trial has been conducted in Geislingen/Steig -- the Bavarian hometown of one of the race promoters, Uli Mutscheller. "It's the first time, though, that any of the teams have gone the wrong way," Mutscheller said.
Gaag was the fourth cyclist when his three TVK Mali Triathlon Klub teammates -- Hungary's Tibor Lehmann and Szabolcs Agoston, and France's Benjamin Sanson -- went straight on the first loop when they should have turned. Gaag called them back, but they lost precious time getting up to speed again. They also were hampered by a stop-and-go penalty imposed for their drafting off the team ahead of them. They finished as the 16th fastest team (26:29), about 1:20 off the winning pace.
Today's stage marked the Tour debut of Germany's Falk Cierpinski, the 22-year-old son of Waldemar Cierpinski, the two-time Olympic marathon champion. Walder Cierpinski is expected to be a spectator at Sunday's duathlon.
Henning's PowerBar-Roy Sports team (25:17) was the third-fastest behind the surprising Saucony Down Under Team (24:46) and the Hansgrohe-Team (25:07). Henning now has an aggregate time, after three stages, that is 40 seconds ahead of Germany's Daniel Unger. Gaag, hurt by his team's cycling effort, would need to beat Henning by 58 seconds or more in the duathlon to seize back the individual lead and overall title.
The women's race went according to form, with Germany's Anja Dittmer retaining her individual lead, and her Arena Team Europe holding the lead in the team standings.
Dittmer's Arena Team Europe was actually upstaged by the Finansbank team, a group of four German women -- Christiane Pilz, Katja Schumacher, Ute Mueckel and Ines Estedt. Their time of 28:33 was five seconds better than that of Hansgrohe-Team (Joelle Franzmann/GER, Leanda Cave/ENG, Kerstin Mejdresch/GER, Martina Nagel/GER). The Arena team, at 28:41, finished fifth.
But Dittermer still leads the Tour after three stages, 25 seconds ahead of Franzmann. A win by 25 seconds or more would seal the individual title for her on Sunday.
(RESULTS)
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Gaag gets his Top 4 Tour revenge
May 26, 2000, Friedrichshafen, Germany (www.slowtwitch.com):
Dimitry Gaag, beaten at the line in Thursday's opening stage, got his revenge on Friday evening by winning the Top 4 Tour's second stage by a full second.
Kazakstan's Gaag won the short triathlon (1000m swim, 18k bike, 7.5k run) along the Lake Constance waterfront, while Anja Dittmer led a 1-2-3-4-5 finish in a showcase for German women.
Both Gaag and Dittmer confirmed their leads in the overall individual ranking, which pays 10 places deep after Sunday's fourth and final race. The overall tour leaders each win DM 4000 (about US$2000), part of an overall prize list of DM 65,000 (about US$33,000).
"First place is not so bad!," Gaag exclaimed after leaving second place for Germany's Maik Petzold. "It's better than yesterday, when I made a big mistake and thought the finish was sooner.
"This is a hard race, and I'm very, very tired after two days. I don't know what I will be like after tomorrow (an 18-kilometer team time trial at Geislingen). Four days is a hard race."
This is the first time that Gaag's Hungarian team, TVK Mali Triathlon Klub, has lined up as one of 27 men's teams. Thirteen women's teams bring the field to a full 40, and Dittmer's winning effort helped her Arena Team Europe retain its lead over Franzmann's Hansgrohe-Team.
It was the second straight day for a 1-2 finish by Dittmer and Franzmann, who happen to be the two women who will represent Germany in the Sydney Olympics. The two stayed together on the run, four laps through city center, until Dittmer pulled away in the final straight.
Both women are coming off two-week rests following the ITU World Championships at Perth on April 30. "I only started back training last week," Dittmer, 24, said. "I wanted to do this race for Arena, and then I'll do the European Championships. My form isn't too great just now."
While Dittmer and Franzmann - and even Christiane Pilz, third for the second straight day - are the class of the 38-woman field so far, the men's race is continuing to turn up new talent coming through the field. In Friedrichshafen, the runner-up to Gaag was a 22-year-old German, Maik Petzold of the SG Adelsberg team. Germany's Daniel Unger (Asics Team Witten), Ralf Eggert (Profile-Team 1) and Denmark's Rasmus Henning (PowerBar-Roy Sports), Thursday's surprise winner, finished 3-4-5.
After Saturday's cycling race, the teams finish off with a duathlon (6k run, 24k bike, 3k run) at Aidlingen.
(RESULTS)
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Denmark's Henning is stunning in Euro debut
May 25, 2000, Esslingen, Germany (www.slowtwitch.com):
Rasmus Henning, a little-known Dane making his European Cup debut, stunned Dimitry Gaag, the world No. 2, at the finish line to win the first stage of the Top 4 Tour on Thursday.
Henning beat Gaag by a shoulder across the line in finishing the 1000-meter swim and 8-kilometer run. Gaag wasn't pleased and snubbed the newcomer, refusing to shake his hand and suggesting that Henning had impeded his finishing sprint. But Gaag had made his own mistake one lap earlier, when he went a few steps out of his way, toward the finish, while Henning ran on in the correct manner.
Women's winner Anja Dittmer led a 1-2-3 finish by Germans. Her combined time of 43:08 was 19 seconds ahead of Joelle Franzmann and 22 seconds ahead of Christiane Pilz.
Henning, 24, helped his PowerBar-Roy Sports-Team to a second-place position behind Profile-Team 1 (Lothar Leder/GER, Ralf Egger/GER, Christian Weimer/GER, Arnd Schomburg/GER). Henning's teammates are Dennis Looze/NED, Jan Hansen/DEN and Norbert Domnik/AUT.
Dittmer's Arena Team Europe (including Nicola Spirig/SUI, Eva Bramboack/AUT, Lisbeth Kristensen/DEN) has a 1:45 lead over second-place Hansgrohe-Team (Joelle Franzmann/GER, Leanda Cave/GBR and Barbara Koesser/GER).
The Tour's four-day format features team and individual standings calculated after each of the four races, all in towns surrounding Stuttgart in southern Germany. Friday's event is an evening triathlon (1k lake swim, 24k bike, 7.5k run) at Friedrichshafen.
Monday's race involved a swim in Esslingen's 50-meter, eight-lane pool, after authorities told race promoters Uli Mutscheller and Jochen Waelde 10 days ago that they couldn't use the local river. The run was a loop course that finished in Esslingen's Marketplatz. It was the first time that the Tour, now in its fourth year, had come to Esslingen, and the venue proved quite promising.
Henning's swim time for 1000m was 12:02, and his run time, for 8k, was 26:06. It was a breakthrough performance for the 24-year-old, who is starting only his third season in triathlon. Once a "lower-level swimmer" for Denmark's national teams ("I used to attend their training camps"), Henning is now making a quick impact in his new sport. Already this season, he has finished third (behind Ryan Bolton and Gilberto Gonzalez) in the St. Anthony's Triathlon, and then won Denmark's duathlon championships.
"I told my friends that I was going to win one of these races, but I was only joking," he said of his fortunes on Thursday evening. "But now it's real."
Now Rasmus Henning is a new Danish name to be realized. A year ago, he said, his only international results of note were a 5th-place finish in the ITU Points Race at Karlstad, Sweden, and a France Irontour appearance on a team with Simon Whitfield, Marc Lees and Richard Stannard.
Now he's beating the likes of Dimitry Gaag -- and the 115 other men (over 27 teams) entered in this Top 4 Tour.
(RESULTS)
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European teams descend on the Top 4 Tour
May 23, 2000, Stuttgart, Germany (www.slowtwitch.com):
Four days, four races, four venues and 40 teams -- that's the lineup for the Top 4 Tour, the opening event of the European Triathlon Cup.
It starts on Thursday and runs through Sunday. In the end, some of the 27 men's teams and 13 women's teams will have a share of the DM 65,000 prize list.
Centered around Stuttgart, it starts Thursday with a swim-run (1.5k swim, 8km run) in Esslingen. A triathlon (1k swim, 24k bike, 7.5k run) follows on Friday in Friedrichshafen. Saturday involves a team time trial on the bike over 19km, and Sunday's finale is a duathlon in Aidlingen.
Each team is composed of four athletes. Team standings are computed each day, but so are individual rankings. Sunday's final rankings will determine the early-season ranking for the ETU Cup.
Some of the featured teams and racers:
- Tri Team Henniez I (Reto Hug, Markus Keller, Peter Alder, Christoph Mauch, Roger Fischlin)
- PowerBar Roy Sports Team (Jan Hansen, Dennis Looze, Norbert Domnik, Johannes Enzenhofer)
- Profile Team (Lothar Leder, Ralf Eggert, Christian Weimar, Arnd Schomburg, Thorsten Frahm)
- Team Cube (Rainer Müller, Roland Knoll, Claude Eksteen, Dirk Bockel)
- TVK Mali (Dimitry Gaag, Benjamin Sanson, Szabolcs Agoston, Tibor Lehmann)
- Asics Team Witten (Thomas Hellriegel, Stephan Vuckovic, Bevan Docherty, Daniel Unger)
- Spanish Team (Raul Cordoba, Carlos Gil, Fernando Cabellos, David Henestrosa)
- Saucony Down Under Team (Andreas Niedrig, Richard Cunningham, Matthew Reed, Jarrod Brauer)
- Hansgrohe Team (Norman Stadler, Wolfgang Müller, Peter Meinhold, Andreas Grohe, Michael Bruckner)
- Consultec Team (Mieke Suys, Anja Heil, Nicole Leder, Susanne Knispel)
- Arena Team Europe (Anja Dittmer, Nicola Spirig, Lisbeth Kristensen, Eva Bramboeck)
- Asics Team Witten (Rebekah Keat, Kirsten Molloy, Ina Reinders, Fiona Docherty)
- Swiss Team (Francisca Rüssli, Dolorita Fuchs, Manuela Ianesi, Sibylle Matter)
- Hansgrohe Team (Joelle Franzmann, Barbara Kösser, Kerstin Mejdrech, Martina Nagel, Claudia Nagel)
- Finansbank (Schumacher Katja, Ute Mückel, Ines Estedt, Christiane Pilz)
- European Mix Team (Lucie Zelenkova, Annie Emmerson, Stepanka Michalickova, Susanne Renn)
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Walker: German men need to get racing
March 1, 2000, Vista, California (www.slowtwitch.com):
The German men didn't just get sideswiped last weekend in the chase for ITU points and world rankings. Their pursuit of Olympic slots had a head-on collision with a steamroller, according to Triathlonlive.com’s rankings analyst John Walker.
They went from having a very healthy 3 slots to being flattened with zero. “Yes, that is zero,” Walker said on Wednesday, once he analyzed last weekend’s results from three ITU Points Races. “Ouch! Fortunately, there are still two months of qualifying left.”
Here, Walker says, is how that happened:
Before the weekend, Germany's top 3 men were ranked as follows:
42. Ralf Eggert
43. Stephan Vuckovic
47. Lothar Leder
Eggert and Vuckovic were ranked highly enough to earn Germany 2 slots via the rankings. On top of that, Leder was ranked highly enough to get one of the host country (AUS) or regional(Oceania) slots that was returned to the rankings.
After the weekend, their rankings were:
47. Ralf Eggert
49. Stephan Vuckovic
52. Lothar Leder
Italy's Stefano Belandi earned 300 points for his 2nd place at the South African Championship, and Alessandro Bottoni earned 130 points at the CAC Championship. This allowed them to jump ahead of Germany and be the last country to get 2 slots from the rankings. Canada's Simon Whitfield and Brazil's Leandro Macedo both scored 2nd places in other points races, moving up their rankings enough that Germany no longer received even 1 slot from the rankings. Juraci Moreira placed 3rd at the CAC Championship, allowing him to claim the last unused/returned slot for Brazil.
In summary, Brazil took two of Germany's slots, and Italy took the other. No other countries were affected.
On the women's side, things were much more boring, Walker pointed out. The only change was that one of the unused/returned slots got taken from Switzerland by South Africa's Lizel Moore.
Walker has made some modifications to the "Country Rankings" pages of the web site (http://www.triathloncentral.com/rank.html). Previously, it only showed the slots related to the country rankings. Now, it has a few sections:
1. A summary of all the allocated slots.
2. Slots allocated based upon country rank (this is the part that
has always been there).
3. Host country slots (just in case Australia doesn't earn a slot
via the rankings).
4. Regional qualifier slots. This includes a link to the appropriate
qualifying race and reference to the athlete who actually
earned the slot.
5. Unused/returned slots. The ITU recently announced a procedure for
how to allocate slots that are not allocated via the above
means. This descibes how those slots are allocated, showing
the country to which the slot will be allocated and the
athlete who earned the slot for that country (along with
his/her rank).
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Leder, Dittmer head indoors for German tri
February 24, 2000, Berlin, Germany (www.slowtwitch.com):
Lothar Leder and Anja Dittmer headline an international field of elites who are gathering for the German Indoor Triathlon (GIT) and European Indoor Triathlon Challenge on Saturday (February 26) in Berlin.
The race comprises a 200m swim, 8k bike, 2k run. A 25m pool will be erected for the swim, with the bike and run portions using a track.
Prize money at stake is DEM 50.000 -- with DEM 10.000 DEM for each of the winners. Training takes place on the days leading up to the event.
Full details and the events' scheduled may be found at either the BZ-Berlin or German Indoor Triathlon websites.
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