Posted: September 20, 2005

Athletics: Press conference Highlights - real,- BERLIN MARATHON

Monday, 19th September:

Rüdiger Otto, Managing Director of SCC-RUNNING:

"We expect for the coming real,- BERLIN MARATHON an outstanding and spectacular race. We reckon with a record number of participants of about 57.000 in total. Runners, walker, Wheelchairs, handbikers and the children of the real,- MINI-MARATHON are part of that. September 25th will be again the ‘day of integration’, which was invented by the German minister of interior Otto Schily. The real,- BERLIN-MARATHON has a foreigner quota of about 30%. This year the total turnover will be again over 35 million euro during the Marathon weekend. Just in taxes it is about 6 to 7 million euros.”

"I would like to thank in particular our sponsors. Without them there would be no chance to organize such an event. So I would like to thank our title sponsor real,- for this cooperation. For six years real,- is our title sponsor and they are not only sponsors, but partners.”

Annika Schramm, real,- Germany

"The cooperation between real,- and the team from the real,- BERLIN-MARATHON is wonderful, and also because of that we will continue our cooperation until 2006. We support the participants with our products like bananas, apples and cookies. We do not only provide them, but are also responsible for the on time delivery along the course. We want to support the athletes as best as possible. Also we had for example a draw with bib numbers for the real,- BERLIN-MARATHON in our branches. We are looking forward to the real,- BERLIN-MARATHON and wish a lot of success!”

Mark Milde, Race-Director

"This year we have a record number of participants of 39.882 runners with a women quotient of 20%. This quotient grows every year by about 1%. That would mean in five years we will have a women quote of one quarter. Another increase is the number of nations at the real,- BERLIN-MARATHON. For the first time we are cracking the 100 nations barrier. This year we will have 103 nations participating. Along the course we will again have music and entertainment, so we will have the biggest annual festival of Berlin again.”

The top-runners:

"The men’s race will have three runners with personal bests lower 2:07:00. Next to the Kenyans Michael Rotich (2:06:33), Raymond Kipkoech (2:06:47) and Joshua Chelanga (2:07:05) will be the Frenchman Driss El Himer (2:06:48) and the South Korean Bong-ju Lee.”

"In the women’s race we will have once again an Olympic Champion: Mizuki Noguchi (PB 2:21:18). She is in a very good shape and is ready for a strong race in Berlin, after she had high altitude training in St. Moritz (Switzerland).”

Reiner Pilz, Promoter Wheelchair

"We have 58 registrations for the wheelchair this year. Last year we had problems because of the Paralympics. This event will be not in our way this year. Heinz Frei (Switzerland) was born in ’58 and will be participating for the 19th time in Berlin. For the second time the handbikers are participating. We have 130 entries. They are faster than the wheelchair athletes.”