Athletes from Dorfen end the lockdown challenge with a nine-hour race
Dorfen - After 75 days, TSV Dorfen's young athletes have reached their destination: the Olympic city of Tokyo.
For the grand finale of the lockdown challenge “We're running to Tokyo”, the trainers Gesine Hintz and Angela Kurz, who started the campaign on January 6th, came up with something special: the last 300 of the 12 399 kilometer route from Dorfen Tokyo should be completed on Maundy Thursday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the running track at the school center.
The teams, in which two friends or families were allowed to run at the same time, alternated every half hour.
At 4 p.m., the boys and girls from the competition group arrived on the 333-meter track for the final sprint.
But because the way to the Olympic Games is a strenuous affair, Kurz and Hintz built in some extra exercises on the track: tire skipping, coordination ladders, banana boxes and hurdles not only trained the young athletes' coordination and speed, but also ensured for variety and even more fun collecting kilometers.
Without a torch, but with burning sparklers and a towel as a reward, the trainers awaited the eager runners at the finish shortly before 5 p.m.
Exactly here, at the sports field at the Dorfen Nord elementary school, they started on Dreikönig, ran to the Czech Republic, Poland and Belarus and crossed Russia for many weeks before they reached Japan.
Around 35 families from the city area of Dorfen brought Hintz and Kurz with their lockdown challenge to exercise regularly in the fresh air.
“That was a great action and it was fun and motivated us for a long time,” said Andrea Spranger after crossing the finish line.
And Silke Schindler added a little wistfully: “Now we’re going to be missing something.”
BEATE SPINDLER
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On the way to Tokyo, the athletes from Dorfen crossed six countries and passed the “Olympic Rings” in the final sprint while skipping tires.
© Beate Spindler
