FITNESS TRIBUNE No 1 English

STRENFLEX News

Hungary has a fitness princess - Switzerland a fitness king and queen Second STRENFLEX European championships in Austria to regain the lost points through good performance in the other three areas. Bruises to both knees as a result of a fall a few days before the competition added to Ramona’s predicament. Despite using cremes, she was not able to “magic away” the pain and this hindered her performance in the cardio area with cycling and the interval parcours.

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On Saturday 14th June, 2003, the sec ond STRENFLEX European champi onships took place in the very beautiful and large grounds of the Park-Studio and Hotel Seepark in St. Pölten near Vienna. Athletes from seven nations competed for the title in three different categories. With wonderful weather and very high temperaures of 37°C in the shadows, the constant stream of visitors to the bathing lake, which directly borders the competition area, was quite understand ably larger than that to the event hall. This however, in no way affected the fantastic competitive atmosphere. The preliminary rounds began punc tually at 11.00 am and for the very first time, competitors from the Czech Republic and Poland took part. Excit ing it was and, despite the heat which even penetrated the event hall, there was fierce competition all the time. The rankings changed several times particu larly amongst the category I women (18 - 29 years). After two hours the finalists had been selected and the events of the late afternoon were awaited with excite ment. The final of the men’s and women’s STRENFLEX European champion ships kicked off at 5.00 pm with the official opening ceremony, the Austrian national anthem and a hall temperature which had, in the meantime, reached 40°C. The new rule according to which points gained in the strength category during the preliminary rounds may be counted in the final came into play for the first time. This allows a fast and short final to be held because the mus cular endurance (dips, chin-ups etc.) category is first, saving time otherwise required for changing the weights. The strength category is defined as a com pulsory exercise anyway, i.e. the objec tive in this category, a maximum point score of 10, is easy to achieve, because the basic requirement of a balanced, muscular body should in any case have already been fulfilled by the competitor. This new rule sealed the fate of the secret favourite from Germany, Ramona Völkel. Due to a mistake, i.e. the incor rect execution of one exercise during the preliminaries, she desperately needed

The other three finalists fought bitterly for the medals, and Hungarian Andrea Roth who, during the European Cup in Basle/Switzerland during February came fourth overall, ensured her place at the top with a high energy performance. European champion and fitness princess was Andrea Roth then, with a confident performance and strong determination. Vice European champion was Lucie Simolova from the Czech Republic in front of her countrywoman Petra Tesa rova. (Photo 2) In women’s category II Kathi Fleig, managing director and owner of the DAVID-GYM in Zurich, was simply in a class of her own. She achieved the maximum point score of 50 in the pre liminary rounds and in the final too, she “hit home” to again score the maximum of 40 points in muscular endurance. Her weak points are the cardio area which comprises cycling on the indoor cycling bike from Schwinn and the interval parcours. It is exactly the interval par cours, which is Kathi’s “achilles heel”, in which the following competitor, Jitka Pucejdlova from the Czech Republic, excelled. In the fourth category, flexibil ity, it became clear what regular training achieves: At the end of February Kathi would not have even gained a single point for her “splits” but she was now able to collect 10 points maximum for this excellent exercise. Kathi Fleig, a worthy European cham pion and fitness queen, closely followed by qualified engineer Jitka Pucejdlova from the Czech Republic who became vice-champion. Third place was taken by newcomer and wellness trainer from Park-Studio, Angela Deimbacher from Austria. (Photo 1) In the men’s category Ivan Bucher from Switzerland dominated, and with his win collected his fourth medal this year. Following the world cup and European

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Fitness Tribune International 1