Sebastian Hallmann and Simret Restle win “Sparkassen-Cross” in Pforzheim

November 8, 2008

This weekend the first major German cross-country race took place in Pforzheim. The race was also the opener of the new established German Cross-Cup with races in Neukirchen, Pforzheim and Darmstadt.
In the men’s race (10K) the reigning German 10.000m Champion Sebastian Hallmann secured victory ahead of the reigning Cross Champ Stephan Hohl. Those 2 made the pace together with the eventually Junior-race (8K) winner Thorsten Baumeister for the better part of the race and the gap to 3rd place Jan Förster and 4th place Steffen Uliczka (reigning steeple champion) was pretty large.
In the women’s race (7K) Simret Restle became the winner with a strong finish, only 4 seconds behind: Julia Viellehner. Also in the women’s race a Junior made the pace for a long time: Julia Hiller pushed from the very beginning, but had to run 2.000m less than the women from the main category. Also the European marathon champion Ulrike Maisch competed on “foreign terrain”. After a long injury break she is just having her coming back and is motivated to qualify for next year’s world championship marathon team.
For the cross-specialists it was the first opportunity to show their capabilities and to send a first sign towards a qualification for the European Cross Country Championships on 9th of December in Brussels.