Sweat Elite

At the age of 8, Philipp Pflieger told his parents that he would run at the Olympic Games one day after watching Haile Gebresselassie and Paul Tergat battle it out in the home straight of the 10,000m at the 1996 Olympic Games. His parents laughed at him. In the following two decades Pflieger endured growth problems in his knees which sidelined him through most of his high school years, multiple stress fractures and surgeries in his early-mid 20’s and was told by several doctors that he wouldn’t run again. Cross training alone at the age of 25, Pflieger considered hanging up the racing shoes. Inspired by his best friend, Pflieger rolled the dice one more time and stepped up to the Marathon distance. Despite not finishing his first attempt at the Marathon, Pflieger managed to clock a 2:12:50 on his second attempt at the 2015 Berlin Marathon and qualify for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in the process.