Petra Eggenschwiler, defending champion at Powerman Zofingen

“I can do everything better this year”

Petra Eggenschwiler won the 30th anniversary Powerman Zofingen last year on the new track. Her rivals at the 2019 Zofingen ITU Powerman Long Distance Duathlon World Championships should be listening to the 31-year-old from Solothurn: “I can still do everything better on September 8, 2019 than last year”. Especially in terms of endurance, she was able to improve thanks to her first Ironman stars.

“I didn’t expect that in any way”, Petra Eggenschwiler was not able to really take her title at the 2018 Zofingen ITU Powerman Long Distance Duathlon World Championships at first. “I didn’t believe in victory until I set off on the last 10 kilometre lap. The longer the race lasted, the more pain I had and I just hoped that I could hold out. “For health reasons, the Solothurn native, who grew up in Laupersdorf, had decided not to start at the Powerman Zofingen in 2016 and 2017. The newly designed 10 km running course, 150 km cycling course and another 30 km running course took the then 30-year-old in just 7 hours and 39 seconds. She was over 22 minutes faster than the runner-up, Melanie Maurer from Bern, who grew up in Wikon.

On a wave of success

Since then Eggenschwiler has turned almost everything she took under her feet into gold. She doesn’t seem to have any competition in mountain and long-distance races this year. nor in the Duathlon. In Viborg, Denmark, Eggenschwiler became European Champion Powerman ETU middle distance duathlon, ahead of Maurer. Only at the Swiss Duathlon Championships this year was she relegated to 2nd place by Maurer. Now Eggenschwiler is already showing off in triathlon: 5th place at the PRO Women Halbironman Rapperswil 2019 at her debut and 6th place (3rd European) shortly after at the Ironman Frankfurt (Ironman-EM). “I’m very satisfied with the course of the season so far, it even went much better than expected.” The first Ironman starts would have helped her a lot: “I’ve improved a lot, especially in terms of race length, I’ve got more endurance.” Before the Powerman Zofingen the next highlight is the Inferno Triathlon on August 17th. In the Bernese Oberland, the Solothurn native was second in each of the last two years.

The challenge

On the 8th of September Eggenschwiler at least wants to be on the podium of the Powerman Zofingen. “If possible, I want to defend my world title. But at the finish line, I just want to be able to say that I did my best.” The 31-year-old from Solothurn is listening attentively to the question of what she could do even better this year compared to last year’s Powerman Zofingen: “Everything! And asked for a comparison old/new track at the Powerman Zofingen, she says: “I actually like both of them, although I liked the old bike track a bit better, because it contained a bit more crisp climbs.”

At the moment she feels comfortable everywhere, with mountain runs, duathlons and triathlons. “Okay, swimming is one of those things – but I still love to do mountain runs, it was always like that and will probably stay like that. “Two final statements prove that Eggenschwiler will start the Powerman Zofingen completely relaxed. “I didn’t look at the starting list to see who my toughest competitors could be at the 31st Powerman Zofingen” and “after my premiere over the whole IRONMAN distance in Frankfurt I’m going to give up duathlons and triathlons for a while now and just want to enjoy the summer. I want to do what I want to do and that means spending a lot of time in the mountains. »

Text: Raphael Galliker