News Archive

At their annual meeting this year, held in Bolzano on Nov. 10-11, the German

Road Races association passed several trail-blazing resolutions that will

strongly influence the face of road racing in Germany in the years to come.

They included two decisions relating specifically to competition conditions.

Firstly, all the major members of GRR, specifically the large city marathon

organizers, have undertaken to in future conduct tests for EPO and thus to

guarantee fair conditions for all on the road-race circuit. The real,-

BERLIN-MARATHON and THE Hansaplast Marathon Hamburg have already pursued a

policy of implementing the expensive blood tests, and the other GRR members

agreed that for larger city marathons, national trials and for course record

attempts, subject to testing be approved by the IAAF, they would conduct urine

tests for EPO. Second, the GRR members will be approaching German AA (DLV)

long-distance coach Wolfgang Heinig with the intention of developing a joint

concept to promote up-and-coming German talent over the next three years. To

this end, GRR envisages setting a matching plan in place, whereby it undertakes

to financially support training camps for talent young long-distance runners

and then nurture this young vanguard onto the international scene by providing

them with start opportunities at GRR marathons and races. To this end, they

expect the DLV to guarantee that such runners will duly configure their

long-term training schedules and target these races. Once again, the Berlin,

Hamburg and the other big marathon organizers will be leading the way.