Where does the world's biggest long-distance triathlon take place?

In Hawaii?

No, in Roth in Middle Franconia.

Every summer, the picturesque town on the Main-Danube Canal is transformed into the stronghold of triathlon and hosts the DATEV Challenge Roth. 
(Mastering the long-distance triathlon in Roth means 3.8 km swimming, 180 km cycling and 42.2 km running).

An event of superlatives requires not only countless helpers, but also various top technologies. With these, we made it possible for the event to run professionally in 2024 and many years before.

1. The distribution of the event packs was supported by our Expo Service with iPad check-in software and live start number printing for late registrations.

The advantage for the organizer and the volunteers: they had an overview at all times of which athletes had already collected their documents, how many had already collected their documents in total and how many were still to be expected.

2. The active transponder was not issued until the day before the race in the transition zone during bike check-in. 

The advantage for the organizer: the transponders were only issued to athletes who were actually starting and, of course, those responsible were always up-to-date on who had checked in their bike and received their active transponder.

3. With 35 timing systems, we recorded 57 times per athlete.

The advantage for the organizers and observers was that the competition could be always followed live and up close.

4. With our results application, we made a wide range of information available live on the internet:

• Speakers could mark their personal favourites, but also follow the centrally defined favourites.
• The athletes could be followed live on the map via our tracking module. The leaders in the respective age groups were presented separately in real time.
• In a special module for swimming status, the organizers were able to see which athletes were still in the water.
• Via our Scroller, 55 speakers provided live information along the course. They received information about the athletes who were currently passing their speaker position, as well as the general course of the competition. (We estimate that this was the highest number of commentators ever to cover a triathlon)

We are proud of our team's performance and would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all team members, especially Alice and Felix Walchshöfer and Markus Englert, for their trusting and exceptional cooperation! For 25 years, we have been taking on the challenge of making life as enjoyable as possible for the participants and organizers of the triathlon in Roth (formerly IRONMAN, now DATEV Challenge Roth)!

(In our next article, you can read why DATEV Challenge Roth gives us the tensest second of our lives each year)