Freudenstadt, Germany, 14 January, For immediate Release: Athletes, team members and supporters witnessed a successful and spectacular beginning for the 2005 Winter Triathlon European Championships in Freudenstadt, Germany on January 14th, 2005.

The event began with the technical briefing for the athletes at 17.00. The race director, Uli Mutscheller explained the course details with assistance of a PowerPoint presentation at the beautiful Kurhaus of Freudenstadt. Afterwards, some techical questions were cleared by Gergely Markus, General Secretary of ETU and Michael Machacka, Technical Delegate of ITU.

By the time it got dark, the spectacular opening ceremony took place at the town centre. The magnificent drummers of Hot Spot led by local "popstar" Andy Morlock made an unforgettable introduction to the show. They were followed by the introduction of the main sponsors, the town mayor, the local MP and the event mascot "Puschel". Gergely Markus and the town mayor, Erwin Reichert welcomed the people with their short speaches.


The highlight of the evening was the marching in of the nations and the cheers of the big crowd, athletes, coaches, team members followed their national flag next to the stage.


Then the Top 5 athletes of the circuit came up the stage to pick their race numbers. Every one of them earned great applause from the supporters - among them them the athletes to watch tommorrow: Sigrid Lang from Germany (2004 European and World Champion), Marianne Vlasveld from the Netherlands (2004 vice-European and vice-World Champion), Sigi Bauer from Austria (2004 World Champion) and Patrik Kuril from Slovakia (2004 European Champion).

The big show closed with another tremendous performance by "Hot Spot".

Later on, the athletes and organisers got together at the pasta party to recharge their batteries for the next - very hard - couple of days.
We wish all of them good luck to the race!

For more information contact:
Gergely Markus, ETU Secretary General
Tel: +36 30 688 2997
E mail: marge@mail.datanet.hu