With just over three weeks to go until the 2015 Wings for Life World Run, the big names and the big numbers keep coming in the global charity running phenomenon that already has 60,000 registered competitors for the main event on 3 May 2015.
It has ben announced this week that Formula One legend David Coulthard will get behind the wheel at the iconice Silverstone Race Track once again. He has built a career on blistering speeds and being first to the finishing line, but at the Wings for Life World Run next month, a more sedate pace will have his heart pounding.
“I love the irony of it”, said Coulthard, a veteran of over 240 Formula One races. “I spent my life putting the pedal to the metal, and here I am at Silverstone driving at a dizzying 15 km/h. But the best part about my race day is that I know I will eventually overtake my former team mate Mark Webber, who is running at Silverstone.”
Other notable names getting behind the wheel as catcher car drivers at races across the world include daredevil Felix Baumgartner, Paris-Dakar champion Marc Coma, US motorcyclist Ricky Johnson, skiing giants Bruno Kernen and Jon Olsson, Ireland’s rugby union star Simon Zebo and GP2 talent Pierre Gasly. They will all be chasing down athletes running to raise funds and awareness for spinal cord research.
Last year, rally driver Franz Wittmann was the last man driving when he caught the first ever Global Champion, Ethiopian Lemawork Ketema, after an astonishing five hours and 78 kilometres of pounding the cement at the run in Donautal, Lower Austria.
“By the time we caught up with Lemawork, we were joking about finding a gas station if this guy keeps on running,” Wittman said. With great runners around the world in 2015, this could be a long day at the office for the drivers chasing them.
With registration closing on 28 April, the likes of Australian Formula One drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Mark Webber, German marathon champion Sabrina Mockenhaupt and French World Cup downhiller Luc Alphand will all be taking part, trying to keep ahead of the event’s unique Catcher Car, which acts as a moving finish line.
Athletes can register for the Wings for Life World Run at www.wingsforlifeworldrun.com.
How it works
At 11.30am UTC, half an hour after the runners have started, the Catcher Cars start driving at precisely 15km/h (9.32 miles/hr). At 12.30, they speed up to 16km/h, at 13.30 to 17km/h, at 14.30 to 20 km/h and at 16.30 to 35 km/h. All the drivers will speed up at the same time, worldwide, and maintain the same speed. After two and a half hours, the runners will have covered 31km. Since the Wings for Life World Run starts at 11am UTC in all 35 locations, a Global Race Control and the help of technology ensure that all drivers speed up at precisely the same moment.
Behind the scenes
The Catcher Cars are fitted with completely new tracking technology, developed specifically for the Wings for Life World Run. A participant’s local and global ranking will be determined by the distance that they cover before being passed by a Catcher Car, not by their time spent running. The Catcher Cars are governed by the Wings for Life World Run rulebook, ensuring fair and simultaneous progress on the 35 tracks around the world.
The two German Catcher Cars – in Munich and Darmstadt – have been modified for drivers with spinal cord injury to chase down runners at two sold-out locations. All runners’ progress and final results across all tracks will be recorded by a timing tag hidden in each runner’s race number. The tag is activated as they cross the start line and is deactivated and their final distance recorded when they are passed by a Catcher Car.
Numbers please
Catcher Cars on all race tracks will leave the start line 30 minutes after the runners start the Wings for Life World Run and proceed to an accelerating global speed schedule.
11.00 UTC – race start
11.30 UTC – catcher car start – pace of 15km/hr (approx. 9.3 mph)
12.30 UTC – pace increase: 16 kph (9.94 mph)
13.30 UTC – pace increase: 17 kph (10.56 mph)
14.30 UTC – pace increase: 20 kph (12.43 mph)
16.30 UTC – pace increase to 35 kph (approx. 21.75 mph)
Introduced in 2014, the Wings for Life World Run is a global running event on 3 May 2015. Athletes in 35 locations around the world start at precisely the same time, 11am UTC. As if that wasn’t unique enough, the race has no finish line. Instead, the runners are followed by a Catcher Car, which takes off 30 minutes after the start at 15km/h and steadily increases its speed until the last athletes have been caught.
Last year’s global champion, Lemawork Ketema, was caught after more than 5 hours and 78 km. This year, the Wings for Life World Run App is additionally available for training and registering for the Selfie Run.
Running for those who can’t
The Wings for Life World Run was introduced to support the not-for-profit Wings for Life foundation, which funds spinal cord research projects all over the world. 100% of the registration fees and sponsorship dollars from the World Run go directly to the Wings for Life Foundation to fund research to cure spinal cord injury.
Millions of people around the world are living with a spinal cord injury. Every year, at least 250,000 more sustain a traumatic spinal cord injury, with the majority coming from traffic accidents, tragic falls and slips.
