Africa Triathlon

Freudenstadt, Germany, 14 January

Athletes, team members and supporters witnessed a successful and spectacular   beginning for the 2005 Winter Triathlon European Championships in Freudenstadt,   Germany on January 14th, 2005.

The event began with the technical briefing for the athletes at 17.00. The   race director, Uli Mutscheller explained the course details with assistance   of a PowerPoint presentation at the beautiful Kurhaus of Freudenstadt. Afterwards,   some techical questions were cleared by Gergely Markus, General Secretary of   ETU and Michael Machacka, Technical Delegate of ITU.

By the time it got dark, the spectacular opening ceremony took place at the   town centre. The magnificent drummers of Hot Spot led by local “popstar”   Andy Morlock made an unforgettable introduction to the show. They were followed   by the introduction of the main sponsors, the town mayor, the local MP and the   event mascot “Puschel”. Gergely Markus and the town mayor, Erwin Reichert   welcomed the people with their short speaches.

  The highlight of the evening was the marching in of the nations and the cheers   of the big crowd, athletes, coaches, team members followed their national flag   next to the stage.

  Then the Top 5 athletes of the circuit came up the stage to pick their race   numbers. Every one of them earned great applause from the supporters - among   them them the athletes to watch tommorrow: Sigrid Lang from Germany (2004 European   and World Champion), Marianne Vlasveld from the Netherlands (2004 vice-European   and vice-World Champion), Sigi Bauer from Austria (2004 World Champion) and   Patrik Kuril from Slovakia (2004 European Champion).

The big show closed with another tremendous performance by “Hot Spot”.

Later on, the athletes and organisers got together at the pasta party to recharge   their batteries for the next - very hard - couple of days.
  We wish all of them good luck to the race!

For more information contact:
  Gergely Markus, ETU Secretary General
  Tel: +36 30 688 2997
  E mail: marge@mail.datanet.hu