Thomas Hellriegel

0 Thomas Hellriegel
Thomas Hellriegel at the Trans Vorarlberg Triathlon in Bregenz , 2012
Personal information
Date of birth	14th January 1971 (age 49)
place of birth	Büchenau , Germany
Nickname	Hell on Wheels
size	178 cm
Weight	70 kg
societies
Since 1991	TV boards
Until 2003	PV triathlon Witten
Since 2003	Triathlon team TG Witten
Current	TV Thalmässing
successes
1995-2003	6 × Ironman winner
1997	Winner Ironman World Championship
1992	Military world champion triathlon
1992	German Champion Triathlon (Olympic Distance)
2007, 2008	German Champion Triathlon (long distance)
1993	Vice European champion
status
inactive

Thomas Hellriegel (born January 14, 1971 in Büchenau ) is a former triathlete . He is a six-time Ironman winner, the first German winner of the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii (1997), German triathlon champion and military world champion and is included in the best list of German triathletes on the Ironman distance .

Career

As a child and adolescent, Thomas Hellriegel was initially active as a handball player for over ten years and made it up to the Baden youth selection player. As a teenager, he also joined a swimming club. At the age of nineteen, he first started at Ironman Europe in Roth during his training as a physics laboratory assistant . As a regular soldier Thomas Hellriegel belonged from 1992 to 1996 - at times together with Ralf Eggert and Normann Stadler  - the sports promotion group of the Bundeswehr in Warendorf. In 1992 he won both the German championships on the Olympic distance at the Cologne Triathlon as well as the first military world championships in Sassenberg , at the world championship in Huntsville in 1992 he was sixth. In 1993 in Echternach Hellriegel was vice-European champion behind the Briton Simon Lessing .

After a triumph in his first middle distance in 1994 at the Allgäu Triathlon in Immenstadt and a renewed trip to the long distance as fifth at the ITU World Championship at the Triathlon International de Nice , the Ironman followed in May 1995 in the lava fields of the Canary Island of Lanzarote - the then 24th year old Hellriegel as the youngest athlete to date - ahead of last year's winner Dutchman Frank Heldoorn, who was seventh at the Ironman Hawaii the year before.

After the hoped-for nomination by the DTU for the European championship did not take place, Hellriegel decided at short notice to start six weeks later at Ironman Europe in Roth, Franconia, against international stars of the scene at the time such as Péter Kropkó , Greg Welch , the American Ray Browning and Stefan Holzner , winner of the Ironman New Zealand three months earlier . The hitherto largely unknown Hellriegel showed the trade press present his preference for hot weather at 33 ° C when he and Jürgen Zäck , known for his parforce rides on the bike - last year with the second fastest time ever achieved in the world for the second time Winner in Roth - kept up on the 180 km and switched to the running track just one minute behind the Koblenzer.
On the podium were Jürgen Zäck, Thomas Hellriegel and Lothar Leder - the "Big-Three" that dominated the German triathlon scene for around a decade. In October, Thomas Hellriegels made his debut at the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii, where he set a new course record of 4:29:37 h on the bike course and was the first to go on the running course with a 13-minute lead over triathlon legend Mark Allen . It was only five kilometers before the finish line that Mark Allen Hellriegel was able to move into second place - the best placement for a German at the Ironman Hawaii to date. Hellriegel was then voted Triathlete of the Year in Germany.

In 1996 Hellriegel started - after his victory at Ironman Canada two months earlier and Mark Allen's resignation - as the top favorite at Ironman Hawaii and undercut his bike record from the previous year in 4:24:50 h and set a new personal best, which was then nine Years of existence and earned him the nickname "Hell on wheels" (Hell on Wheels). This time another athlete kept up the pace - but the Belgian Luc Van Lierde had to serve a three-minute time penalty in the transition area. Hellriegel even increased his lead to 4:40 minutes, but Van Lierde came up again and ultimately overtook Hellriegel at the same point as last year, Mark Allen.

Winner Ironman Hawaii 1997

In July 1997, Thomas Hellriegel cracked the 8-hour mark at Ironman Europe in Roth in 7:57:50 hours - which was only undercut by a person through Lothar Leder for the first time last year. Hellrieel's time that year was not even enough for the podium: Luc Van Lierde, Jürgen Zäck and Lothar Leder had crossed the finish line before him.

Three months later at Ironman Hawaii, Thomas Hellriegel - in the absence of Luc Van Lierde - only started second this time, three minutes behind, but was able to catch up with Jürgen Zäck after twelve kilometers. Three kilometers further he not only managed to pull away, this time he was able to defend his lead to the finish. Third behind Zäck was Lothar Leder, a total of nine of the first 22 men came from Germany on that day.
Hellriegel received US $ 35,000 in prize money for the first triumph of a German triathlete at the Ironman World Championship. A week later, Hellriegel and Zäck were studio guests in the current sports studio .

Thomas Hellriegel is one of the most successful German triathletes in the long distance. He was the best German participant in Ironman Hawaii six times, and eight times he made it into the top ten. With four podium placements at the “Flower Ceremony”, he was for many years the most successful German at Ironman Hawaii. It was not until 2015 that Andreas Raelert pushed him to second place in this regard. Since Thomas Hellriegel was entitled to a lifelong starting right as the Hawaii winner, he started every year at the Ironman Hawaii from 1995, but rose from 2004 (except for 2005 and 2010) after the second change. Since the qualification criteria were changed in 2011 and former Hawaii winners still have to take part in another Ironman per year for validation, he has not started, but was often there as a spectator.

Thomas Hellriegel has shown great consistency in his competitions over many years, so his victory in Hawaii was followed by victories in his Ironman races in Lanzarote (2003), Lake Placid (1999) and New Zealand (2000). It wasn't until seven years after his victory at the Ironman Hawaii that a German was able to triumph again ( Normann Stadler , 2004). He was able to set new course records on many of the cycle routes that Hellriegel rode as part of his races.

For the PV-Triathlon Witten , from 2003 for the Triathlon Team TG Witten , Thomas Hellriegel started in the Triathlon Bundesliga .

Thomas Hellriegel, Roth 2007

In November 2000 the founding of a professional team under the name "Corpus Hilpoltstein" was announced, which also included Stefan Holzner , Faris Al-Sultan and Markus Forster . The team was supported by five sponsors, including Opel , Jürgen Sesser, Heidi Jesberger's partner and later husband, acted as manager and Wolfgang Dittrich as the sporting director . In November 2002 Hellriegel was presented at a press conference as a participant in the Challenge Roth 2003 together with Holzner and Forster. At the end of 2002 the news appeared that the Corpus team had been dissolved and that Hellriegel would start together with Holzner and Forster at the Ironman in Frankfurt. Shortly beforehand, Opel had signed a three-year contract with Xdream as the organizer to become the title sponsor of Ironman Germany for 750,000 euros a year. A few months later the founding of the “Opel Triathlon Team” with Thomas Hellriegel, Markus Forster, Stefan Holzner and Katja Schumacher was announced. When Opel ended its commitment, the team was dissolved again in 2005.

Hellriegel had to cancel a planned start at Challenge Roth in July 2015 for health reasons. He trains the German triathlete Anja Ippach and lives in Büchenau near Karlsruhe.

Thomas Hellriegel started as a team with Faris Al-Sultan on the Tour Transalp in June 2018 .

Stefan Hellriegel, Thomas Hellriegel's younger brother, is also an enthusiastic triathlete and, together with Björn Steinmetz, was the organizer of the Kraichgau Triathlon Festival and Challenge Kraichgau .

Awards

• In the 1997 VDS athlete of the year vote , around 3,000 sports journalists voted Thomas Hellriegel in third place.

• For his sporting successes, Thomas Hellriegel was honored together with Anja Dittmer and Rainer Müller-Hörner in Berlin in March 2003 with the Silver Laurel Leaf of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Sporting successes

(DNF - Did Not Finish )

Web links

• Official website of Thomas Hellriegel
• Thomas Hellriegel in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
• Profile for Thomas Hellriegel at the Institute for Applied Training Science , accessed on May 13, 2014
• Profile and results of Thomas Hellriegel in the ITU database at Triathlon.org , accessed on June 18, 2020 (English).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ursula Kaiser: A man possessed in search of the performance limit .
2. ↑ Athlete of the Year 1997. (PDF) Retrieved July 11, 2019 . 
3. ↑ 2nd International Triathlon Military Championships 1994 Belgium on YouTube
4. ↑ Mark Allen once again is Ironman ( English ) In: Seattle Times . October 9, 1995.
5. ^ Christian Witt: Hell Hawaii . In: Focus . November 4, 1996.
6. ↑ Eisenmann Hellriegel was 119 seconds missing . In: Rhein-Zeitung . October 29, 1996.
7. ↑ Berliner Kurier : Eisenmann Hellriegel intercepted again shortly before the goal . October 28, 1996.
8. ↑ Fastest Ironman in the world . In: Rhein-Zeitung . July 14, 1997.
9. ↑ Hellriegel wins "Ironman" . In: Rhein-Zeitung . October 19, 1997.
10. ↑ Frank Ketterer: Hellriegel: went through hell three times . In: The world . October 20, 1997.
11. ↑ Frank Ketterer: Performance show of the iron men . In: Berliner Zeitung . October 20, 1997.
12. ↑ Triumph of the three muscled animals . In: Hamburger Abendblatt . October 20, 1997.
13. ↑ Rob Perry: Press Release: Hellriegel & Fuhr swim, bike & run to 1997 Ironman World Championships ( English ) World Triathlon Corporation. October 18, 1997. Archived from the original on February 21, 1999.
14. ↑ Michael Eder: Triathlete Hellriegel - after all those tough years . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . September 21, 2011.
15. ↑ Jens Richter: Association issue clarified: Hellriegel, Forster, Al-Sultan in Witten . In: tri2b.com . February 13, 2003.
16. ↑ Dirk Kant Lehner: Corpus Hilpoltstein . In: 3athlon.de . November 2000. Archived from the original on January 27, 2001.
17. ↑ Press release: Six Opel Zafira for triathlon team . Opel . December 3, 2001.
18. ↑ Thomas Scharrer: It is very Christmas in Roth . In: Nürnberger Zeitung . November 29, 2002.
19. ↑ Quartet goes . In: Nürnberger Nachrichten . January 2, 2003.
20. ↑ Jens Richter: Corpus team apparently before dissolution . In: tri2b.com . December 28, 2002.
21. ↑ Press release: The Opel Triathlon Team starts off . Opel . June 16, 2003.
22. ↑ Opel saves on sponsorship . In: Rheinische Post . November 2, 2004.
23. ↑ Triathlon tips from Ironman Thomas Hellriegel (July 30, 2018)
24. ↑ Ex-triathletes at the Everyman's Race - Ironman World Champions Al-Sultan and Hellriegel start at TOUR Transalp 2018 (June 6, 2018)
25. ↑ All results of the "Sportsman of the Year" election . In: Rhein-Zeitung . December 7, 1997.
26. ↑ Awarded a silver bay leaf . In: Handelsblatt . March 31, 2003.
27. ↑ Next victory: Hellriegel also wins in Estonia (August 6, 2012)
28. ↑ Thomas Hellriegel and Lisa Hütthaler win the premiere of the TriStar Kufstein . July 15, 2012. Archived from the original on January 15, 2013.
29. ↑ TRISTAR111: THOMAS HELLRIEGEL VICTORS IN ESTONIA .
30. ↑ IRONMAN 70.3 St. Pölten: The anniversary edition is in the starting blocks
31. ↑ Results middle triathlon
32. ^ Challenge Kraichgau: Triumphant victory for Sebastian Kienle
33. ↑ Kohler Haardman 2004: Bracht and strength to win by a large margin