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The Last Victors of the Running Year 2002

The last victors of the running year 2002 were honoured at the Mommsen Stadium at the 27th Berlin Pilsner New Year’s Eve Run organised by SCC RUNNING, also known as the „Donut Run”.

2002-12-31

The „next to last“ victors were the participants of the costume competition. The most intricate men’s costume went to Achim Wolfgang, who appeared (and competed) as the „Inner Pig-Dog“, a German term for the beast that tries to keep you from exercising, while the best women’s costume went a woman dressed as “good weather”.

The number of participants was up slightly from last year’s, under a sunny sky but with temperatures well under freezing. Again this year, the Teufelsberg Mountain had to be overcome—last year the weather and the course conditions made that course too dangerous. With a total of 1,908 participants (1,896 last year), the course over the lightly snow-covered Teufelsberg offered the „hoped for“ level of difficulty for the runners. The main race of 10.3 km was sent off with a firecracker start.

The winner was Jan Diekow (SCC Triathlon) in 36:32 ahead of Christoph Hofmann 36:55 (no club) and the experience mountain runner, the Thomas Winkler of Switzerland 36:56 (ST Bern/SUI). The woman’s winner was Kathrin Neumann (USV Cottbus) in 41:34 ahead of Annette Hering (Triathlon Sisu) 44:33 and Regina Marunde (LTC) in 44:37. The 6.6 km race (once over the mountain) was won by Franz Göggel (no club) in 25.35 ahead of Jan Ludwig (FU Medizin) in 25:58.

Annemarie Wendler (Forum Team) won the women’s course in 31:54 ahead of Kathrin Palm (LG Griebnitzsee) in 32:04. The victors received giant jelly donuts and a bottle of sparkling wine, and all the other partici-pants received „normal“ donuts and a certificate at the finish. For a few lucky runners, according to a New Year’s Eve tradition, their donuts were filled with hot mustard rather than with jelly. The organisers compensated these “fortunate” runners for the “joke” with a free t-shirt.

The head of the organisation, Horst Milde, summed up a successful year 2002: „With a total of 108,429 participants at 17 running events – from the New Year’s Day Run to the New Year’s Even Run at the end – SCC RUNNING kept the Berlin running community moving and also set an impressive new record.”

On January 1, 2003 at 12 noon the new running year 2003 was started off at the 32nd Berlin New Year’s Day Run at the Brandenburg Gate. The district mayor of Berlin Mitte, Joachim Zeller, gave the starting signal.