Alumni run: sport for a good cause

The run start­ed at the Chi­nese Tower in the Eng­lish Gar­den, where booths pro­vided in­for­mation about organ dona­tion, organ donor cards were dis­tributed and peo­ple could even get an organ donor tat­too. A total of 1000 run­ners partic­ipat­ed, in­clud­ing celeb­rities such as ski leg­end Markus Wasmeier, discus throwing Olympic champion Lars Riedel and the Ba­varian Minis­ter of Health Ju­dith Ger­lach.

It was par­ticu­larly im­pres­sive that nu­mer­ous peo­ple af­fected took part in the run to show the quali­ty of life that is possi­ble after a suc­cess­ful organ dona­tion. Judith Ger­lach had cho­sen the start­ing num­ber 8178, which corre­sponds to the num­ber of peo­ple wait­ing for a donor organ in Ger­man hospi­tals. Prof. Dr. Mat­thias An­thu­ber, Direc­tor of the Clinic for Gen­eral, Vis­ceral and Transplan­tation Sur­gery at the Uni­versi­ty Hos­pital Augsburg, for­mer na­tional hand­ball player and initia­tor of the organ dona­tion run, em­phasized the inten­tion of the run “to raise organ dona­tion in Ger­many to a higher level”.

Some of the partic­ipat­ing alum­ni and alum­nae of the Elite Net­work had trav­eled from far and wide to be there. De­spite the frosty tem­pera­tures, the at­mosphere was great – even while warm­ing up to­gether and espe­cially at the starting area, where eve­ryone was put in the right mood for the up­com­ing run with music. The start­ing signal for all dis­tances from 2.5 to 10 km was given at 6 p.m. and a group of drummers pro­vided addi­tional moti­vation along the attrac­tive route through the Eng­lish Gar­den.

After the finish line, free bratwurst and drinks replenished the runners' energy, and they sat together in the beer garden of the Chinese Tower to recover and get to know each other. Our athletes were especially happy with the news that Umaima Ehtasham finished third in her group in the 2.5 km walk.

We would like to thank all partic­ipants for their com­mit­ment and con­gratu­late them on their achievements!