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ORIGIN OF GLOBAL GUTZ
By Luk Keller
Just like
alleycat racing itself Global Gutz roots back to Toronto. In the fall
of 1999 I worked in Toronto for a couple of months. Fish from
Amsterdam, who was there around that time, too, first brought up the
idea of a race that would take place in several places around the globe
simultaneously. Chatting about it in the street, we decided we should
meet later that week to figure out a more precise draft.
I remember it was on a really crappy Thursday. Sleet had come down all
day and my feet were frozen from the slush. I ran out of dry clothes
that evening and I wasn't really looking forward to going out again
after showering. But I somehow felt it was my duty to get back into my
moist clothes and meet Fish at his place. Local courier Kevin Hurley
was also present. The three of us discussed a few possibilities of how
to structure such a race. Perhaps it was because we were really tired
and worn out by the shitty weather that day, the fact is that nothing
fruitful came out of our first meeting about an as yet unnamed world
wide alleycat race.
And there wasn't a second meeting before I had to go back to Zurich. I
kept thinking about the race for the coming months and then, in June of
2000, three month before the CMWC in Philly, I came up with a plan. I
contacted Fish to ask him if he’d agree to my organizing the race by
myself the way I thought it could work.
Fish was OK with it, so I started spreading the word over the email
list and various other messenger channels. Every competitor in the race
should pay a fee of approx. 5 US Dollars, so we could send the overall
winners - male and female - to the CMWC. There was the risk of not
getting enough money from the fees to pay for the two flights
(depending on where the winners came from). And I also had my doubts
about whether all the race organizers would actually send in the fees
they took from their racers. After all, they might think them better
spent on a keg for the after party. I knew I had to find somebody to
back me up financially. The company I work for, Veloblitz, is a co-op
and this being the golden years, my co-workers said they were willing
to cover what's missing for the prizes. Fortunately so, as I have to
say. Because my presumption about the race organizers proved right and
their sending in the fees didn't work out too well.
Eleven cities competed in Global Gutz’ first edition. But many more
cities had contacted me on behalf of the race. A guy from Sydney for
example, who was really interested but who wasn't sure if many couriers
would participate at 5 am on a Sunday. I was pretty sure my laying out
the time table was as good as possible, so most cities had an
acceptable time to race. But I felt for the couriers down under and in
Japan with their impossible starting times. I knew some adjustments had
to be made for the next edition. Global Gutz had to be split into two
parts. Since I didn't want to have the usual dividing line
between the US and the Old Continent, I decided to us the
Mississippi as the border line.
In 2001, flights were presented to the top male and female racer of
each zone. This resulted in one Aussie more attending CMWC in Budapest.
Personally, I was impressed how Jessy Heron from Melbourne made it to
Hungary by winning the West-of-Mississippi race and went on to win
medals in about three different events at the CMWC.
In 2002, we changed the modalities with the flights a bit. There were
only two flights to the CMWC in Copenhagen for the race winners - top
male and female overall. But an additional two tickets were given out
by the CBMA (Copenhagen that is) lottery style among all the race
organizers. That year Global Gutz had the biggest turnout so far with
close to 600 racers world wide.
As I had always hoped this event would once establish itself and its
headquarter would then move its base to a different city each year, I
felt it was time to pass it on to a new committee. I knew from my own
experience that you can feel quite empty after throwing the CMWC, so I
felt my friends from Copenhagen were to be the right choice for the
job. As I had supposed, Flip and his team from Copenhagen were willing
to take on the task. From then on, the whole thing was out of my hands,
so the following account could contain misinformation or at least
inaccuracies. The Copenhagen committee successfully organized Global
Gutz in 2003 and then again in 2004 as a shared effort with the guys
from Berlin.
In 2005, there is a gap in the history of Global Gutz as that year
nobody was willing to take responsibility for the world wide
organization.The following year, Dirk and Mahrou from nice and shiny
Barcelona started preparing the 2006 edition during their siesta time.
Then, in 2007, Toronto, the place of its origin itself became the
Global Gutz world headquarter and promised a 2008 edition, too. I
hope the ball keeps rolling...
The
following ranking only includes the winners from each city in the
original Global Gutz in 2000
1. Pepsi, Kopenhagen 32:33
2. Eric Zo, San Francisco 34:43
3. Aron, Budapest 35:15
4. John Saulnier, Toronto 35:30
5. Anne, Kopenhagen 36:52 (1st female)
6. Julie Delong, Toronto 37:28
7. Beat Muller, Basel 37:50
8. Cfuti, Budapest 38:2
9. Nicolas Muller, Zurich 38:27
10. Vinbar, Amsterdam 38:59
11. Eefje Ottecather, Amsterdam 40:59
12. Dina Seitz, Zurich 41:16
13. Mike Scott, Bremen 44:54
14. Neil Thomson, Washington 46:15
15. Mo, New York 50:45
16. Amy Gibbs, New York 59:41
17. Maria Schur, San Francisco 60:09
18. Hampi Meyer, Lausanne 68:00
Andrea Ramseier, Lausanne 68:00
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