2006 European champion to run Guernsey Marathon
ROCQUAINE has a new sports star. Only the little coastal community probably does not know they have an Olympian and champion runner in their midst – even if she may have become a regular figure pushing out the miles up and down the west coast in recent months.
Her name is Ulrike Friedrich, although it was as Ulrike Maisch that she was the toast of German and European running nine years ago when, in Gothenburg, she ran 2hr 30min. 1sec. to become the European marathon champion.
Fast-forward nine years, and six years after she ran her last marathon, the 38-year-old is now a mother of two young children and with husband Richard, an air traffic controller, is loving the Guernsey lifestyle.
'I have only been here three months, but I really like it,' she said this week which will see her rest up having been clocking up 80-100km a week in recent times.
'We have good friends and we live close to the beach.'
At her best, she would decimate the island all-comers' record and she has set her heart on a top-three finish in the women's event of the Canaccord Genuity Guernsey Marathon on Sunday.
As she hopes to go under three hours, that would seem perfectly feasible for a runner who not so long ago was one of real quality.
More in Thursday's Guernsey Press.
