If you ask nicely, German competitor Brigid Wefelnberg might just let you take a closer look at her shorts. There you’ll find a sponsorship patch from the wine growers' association in her Black Forest homeland.
Race sponsorship comes in many shapes and forms, but backing is backing and, if it comes from the place you belong, then it’s all the more special.
As sponsorship deals go, 45-year-old Brigid’s might seem an unusual one, but she wears the association patch proudly, along with one advertising wine from her home town of Freiburg Munzigen. That whole region of Germany is famous for wine, so it makes perfect sense for the industry to support a local athlete.
Brigid’s involvement with the wine growers' association came through a chance encounter on her way to work around three years ago. A former track and field athlete and competitive swimmer, at that point in her life Brigid was doing a lot of running in the Black Forest area and had just received confirmation of entry into the Marathon des Sables.
“I was hitch-hiking to work and the president of the wine growers' association of the whole region picked me up,” she recalls. “I had my running shoes over my shoulder and he asked if I ran. I told him about getting the entry into this race in the desert and he said ‘I work for this association, maybe we can help you.’ I just thought the proof would be in the pudding and I’d wait until it really materialised.
“As fate had it, I missed the bus two weeks later and the same guy picked me up. By that time he had talked to his colleagues and they had said they wanted to support me.”
And so began Brigid’s relationship with the wine cooperative, though obviously she doesn’t actually drink the stuff while running. They’ve supported her through two successful MDS campaigns and numerous other ultra-distance events, including a 260km race on the Great Wall of China and the 230km Coastal Challenge in Costa Rica. She’s also raced in the Arctic Circle.
“It’s the only sport where you can mix in with the professionals,” said mother-of-two Brigid as she rested after the completion of Stage 4 of the Atacama Crossing yesterday. “In this kind of event there are two races going on. There are the really good athletes way up front who have a chance of being first, second, or third and then the rest of us. I enjoy being in the healthy middle part of the pack.”
In addition to her work as a translator and business coordinator for an Indian software company, Brigid also gives slideshows and motivational lectures based on her experiences in endurance events.
“People want to see pictures and know what it’s like,” she says. “Because I’m not in the pack, people want to hear about someone with a typical life doing it. I’m a single mother with two kids and I work full-time.”
The Atacama Crossing 2009 should certainly give Brigid plenty of new material on the strength of the human character.
“There’s a really good spirit here,” she said. “There’s always a special kind of people that come and sign up for these things. One guy has had a brain tumour, one girl’s missing a kidney. There are all kinds of twists of fate that people have had, especially if it’s physical, but they’ve overcome amazing hindrances. They’re a very special bunch. It’s amazing to be halfway around the world and to be sitting here in the middle of nowhere with these people. It’s a real privilege.”
