Golden marathon team around Leipziger Ihlow and Schöfisch wins in Hanover
Hanover/Leipzig. Millions of amateur runners around the world know it from their own experience: an incredible number of things can go wrong in a marathon. The five runners from the Leipzig club lauftraining.com were all the happier on Sunday. At the German Championships in Hanover (almost) everything went like clockwork. At the finish, the Saxons were overwhelmed by their emotions and even shed tears. Marcus Schofisch (34), Nic Ihlow (26) and Sebastian Nitsche (38) win gold for Leipzig in the team ranking, Cornelius Roßbach and Benjamin Lindner also secure the team result, although only the top 3 per club are included in the ranking.
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Sebastian Nitsche got his first howl attack two kilometers before the end when trainer Ronny Martick called out to the teacher. “Marcus and Nic ran a 2:15 – now it’s about gold!” Nitsche ran in his 18th marathon felt for his life. “The whole week was crazy for me, I didn’t know if I could even start today and finish.” A gastrointestinal virus had affected the former DHfK runner since Monday, he spent half the night on the ceramic bowl . On the day of the competition, too, he was already tossing and turning in bed at 2.30 a.m., woken up by the noise from the street in front of the hotel. In general, the preparation was not optimal, after Christmas the whole family was flat because of Corona and the father of two children had to take a break from training. “A DM medal was always my goal. Now I’m overjoyed, even if the last six kilometers were a disaster.”
Ihlow said: “I’m happy about the original jump and the big best time. At the same time, it’s annoying to miss bronze by four seconds after 42 kilometers.” Marcus Schöfisch added: “There was a great final sprint on the home straight. It was a crazy race. Nic and I worked together a lot, it was great teamwork.” He is happy about the comeback after four years of injury worries and setbacks. “Above all, we were able to give something back to our coach today.”
Nitsche surpassed himself and reached the finish line in 2:27 hours. He thanked Schöfisch (2:15:04) and Ihlow (2:15:06), who ran both halves at the same pace in cold wind and increased their best times by one and three minutes as fourth and fifth in the DM individual ranking. In the meantime, Ihlow had a ten-second lead over his team-mate. Both missed individual bronze by a blink of an eye, but team gold outshined everything.