Posted: April 28, 2004

Triathlon: Quelle Challenge Roth presents Europe’s top women’s field

Granger-Leder to match men’s Macca-Leder

NÜRNBERG/ROTH, Germany (April 20, 2004) – As registration waxes towards 3,650 triathletes for the July 4th Quelle Challenge Roth triathlon (3.8 km S/180 km B/ 42.2 km R), a number of the world’s top female professionals have signed on to battle for the title “Queen of Roth.” The 100,000-plus spectators that annually come out on race day will line the beautiful, rolling, Bavarian countryside course to see defending champion Nicole Leder (GER) attempt to hold off one of today’s petite but powerful long-course champions, Belinda Granger (AUS), among others.

Leder, the crowd favorite, last year sped away to a commanding 9:15.01 victory, and bettered her 2002 time by more than half an hour and beat her next closest competitor by more than 13 minutes. She had by ten seconds the fastest swim of the day, 54:43, and her brilliant 2:57.49 marathon was the fastest of the day by nearly nine minutes. While she has broken the top twenty in Kona three times and previously won two Ironman events overseas, 2003 was a breakout year for the German. Along with her Challenge Roth win, Leder notched second-place finishes at both Ironman Japan and Florida. Even with her success abroad, her heart is in Roth where she has finished on the podium each of the last three years.

“I know the course very well and it is great to have my whole family and all the triathlon kids living in the Roth area cheering me on,” says Leder. “All the spectators make it feel like a hometown race for me, especially on the run course – I can’t wait to get on the run course.” Like her husband, four-time defending Roth champion and five-time winner here Lothar Leder (who will defend his title as well), Leder is intimately familiar with the course, and decoding her wisdom and strategic smarts could be Granger’s greatest challenge.

Granger is familiar with fellow Aussie and returning Roth hero Chris McCormack’s all-day grip on Lothar Leder here last year. She could very well lead much of the race at Roth, and Nicole might stay in contact, but Granger should be careful of Leder’s running skill. The reigning champion must first have the staying power to match Granger’s improved cycling, but whether the Aussie attempts to ride far off the front and create as large of a gap as possible, or use that pedaling efficiency to work lighter on the bike and conserve energy to outrun Leder, remains to be seen and is a question she will answer on the course. The dual Aussie-Deutsch duel could be the story of the day.

Since her 10th overall finish this past October in Kona, Granger has been on a roll, taking fourth at the Port Macquarie half-iron race, winning the Surfcoast International half and pinning second place and an iron-distance personal best by 22 minutes (9:10.36) in Forster, at Ironman Australia. The previous winner of Ironman Asia (2001) and Ironman Korea (2002 & 2003) has now placed in the top four at Ironman Australia in the last five consecutive years. Her final push before Challenge Roth will be a race against tough competition at the half-iron distance Kohler Haardman, June 12, in Oer-Erkenshwick, Germany.

With most of her races either down under or in Asia, Granger is looking forward to racing in Europe. “This will be my first ultra-distance race in Europe and I have always wanted to compete in this race ever since I first started to follow Ironman,” says Granger. “From the pictures I have seen, the race looks like nothing I have ever experienced. All of my friends who have raced in Roth have told me it is a ‘must-do’ race. I have never even visited Germany and I am not just excited about racing there, I am very excited about visiting such a beautiful place.”

Leder knows that Granger won’t be the only hunter out there on July 4th. Three of Germany’s toughest competitors, all Roth veterans, too, Ute Mückel, Heike Funk and Heidi Jesberger, will be looking to gun down both the defending champ and the queen of Forster-town. Mückel has been on the ultra-distance race scene for over a decade and has faced the world’s best in Kona seven different times, only finishing out of the top 15 once. Late in her career and a bit worn for wear, the German hero seems to shine anew – she won Roth in 1996 but has not gone better than the 9:30’s since her 1997 win at Zurich, however Mückel placed second and third in the last two years at Ironman Florida averaging about 9:41.35. The German swim record holder is a stalwart and will definitely be an early threat on the course she knows so well, but she’ll have to find her old speed and Florida staying power in order to say that she can still stick it.

Jesberger’s resume may not be as long as her fellow countrywoman, but finishing fifth last year at Roth, a top-20 score in Kona in October and third at Half-Ironman South Africa in March are sure to provide her with confidence in her training as July draws near. Funk, who made a comeback to racing last year with her second place behind Leder at Roth, has the bike speed and the fan support to take that next step up the podium for a win in her homeland.

Roth won’t be just a battle between the Germans and an Aussie, because Japan’s fastest women will be looking to be the first Asian to win in Roth. Yoko Hori (JPN), currently residing in New Zealand, has also already notched an ultra-distance race under her belt this year – she finished seventh in March at Ironman New Zealand. Last October, Hori raced a solid 10:12.08 performance in the Kona lava fields. Quelle Challenge Roth will be her 10th ultra-distance race, with only one of those races finishing out of the top 10. Says Hori, “I am currently doing speed work on the run and am looking forward to returning to the crowds and European atmosphere Roth provides.” Hori will warm up to the German scene and feel out her Roth competition when she toes the line with Leder, Granger and Mückel at Oer-Erkenschwick on June 12th.

Yoko Okuda (JPN), 2001 Ironman Japan champion and second-place finisher at Ironman Wisconsin in 2002, is coming off a disappointing “Did Not Finish” due to stomach problems at this year’s Ironman Australia, but hopes to follow her fellow countrywoman’s success in Bavaria. What she’ll need most to do that is confidence knowing that she has clocked low 9:30’s in the past and in finding her former-pro-runner feet when she hits the flat, spectator-crazy marathon in town.

Another non-German and Roth newbie is the Canadian military’s acting National Physical Fitness Manger, Marie Danais (CAN). “My time is very well organized,” she says. “Keeping a full-time job and training as a pro is hard, but I manage to have balance. The challenge is recovery time.” Judging by her 2003 season, only her second year of ultra-distance racing, Danais seems to be marching towards the front. She started with an eighth place finish in Lake Placid, two months later she was seventh at Ironman Wisconsin, and in November, Danais finished fifth at Ironman Florida. The Muskoka Long-Course Triathlon will be her last hard workout two weeks before tapering for Quelle. “My initial visit to Germany will also be my first ultra-distance race in Europe. I have heard about this race since I started triathlons and wondered if one day I would have the opportunity to toe the line,” adds Danais. “I can’t wait to get out of the water and get on that bike course.”

“Such an international pro field is not as common for the women as it is for the men, so this makes Roth even more unique,” says TEAMChallenge GmbH president Herbert Walchshöfer. “The size and quality of our pro, age-group and relay fields shows that Quelle Challenge Roth is truly a special event.”

While the pros will battle for the top-ten prize money, age-groupers from around the globe will head to Roth to experience its triathlon-rich history, festival like atmosphere and storybook Bavarian culture. The field, drawing from 40 nations, is expected to be full with 2,000 single entry participants and 550 relay teams. With 3,650 participants, Roth would again eclipse all Ironman events world wide in only its third year as an independent ultra-distance race. Known throughout the triathlon community as a draft-free race, Roth’s racers will start in staggered swim waves and the high volume of marshals on the course keeps the drafting down and the course safe for all participants.

In addition to the athletes, the perennial 100,000-plus spectators are expected to line the world-record fast course in the Bavarian countryside, and 35,000 visitors are anticipated for the four-day expo. The expo and finishers’ stadium return this year to the newly named, completely redesigned and landscaped Triathlon Park in downtown Roth, a city of 24,000 people about 30 km south of Nürnberg.

The race, said Walchshöfer, feels as strong as ever before. “Sponsorships have grown bigger and better, and we’ve introduced a special event – the fire fighters’ long-distance world championship – for a very special group of heroes including some of the New York firemen, and our on-site and on-line spectators will again be treated to the fascination of premiere triathlon at Roth.” For the second consecutive year, Challenge Roth will also host the Deutsche Triathlon Union (DTU) ultra-distance International German Championship; individual Challenge athletes may elect to also register for this race classification.

Quelle AG, the race’s title sponsor, is Europe’s largest mail order retailer. For years, athletes, media and spectators have often called the race “Quelle,” even when its title was Quelle Ironman Europe and now Quelle Challenge Roth. Sports such as tennis and golf have events known by simply by their sponsors’ names, but elsewhere this is unprecedented. Since the beginning of this 13-year relationship, neither Quelle nor race management imagined the name would stick so well, or that the bond, here, would be so strong.

Quelle Challenge Roth’s sponsors include: Quelle AG, Deutsche Post AG, N-ERGIE, DB Regio, Newline, Nürnberger Nachrichten (Nürnberg Newspapers), Bayrische Versicherungskammer, Maxim, Phillips, Erdinger Alkoholfrei, Sparkasse Mittelfranken-Süd, ADAC, Arndt, Recaro, PowerBar, County of Roth, City of Roth, City of Hilpolstein, Coca-Cola, Frankenbrunnen, Zeus Copy, Paladin, Hofmann, Jura Kaelte, Lorenz & Partner, INKO Energy, Flor & Sohn, Spedition Heinloth, and BIESTMILCH.

For more information on the July 4, 2004, Quelle Challenge Roth and Triathlon Festival, Deutsche Triathlon Union (DTU) ultra-distance International German Championship and Long Distance Triathlon World Championship for Firefighters, to participate in the on-line forum, and to receive the event’s newsletter, visit www.challenge-roth.com.

From: Steve Handwerker slhcomm@hotmail.com.