Frankfurt’s Polizei Bayern (men’s team) and Bundespolizei (women) and Chicago’s Northern Trust (mixed) enjoy being toasted as the fastest full-time working runners in the world at the 2018 J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge Championship in Boston.
The 10th city in the 35-year history of the J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge® Championship proved to be a memorable one for runners throughout the world, but most especially from Frankfurt and Chicago.
Boston served as a first-time host for the Championship, and delivered idyllic conditions on the first evening of summer. The 156 fastest full-time working runners in the world took off five minutes before a sold-out crowd of nearly 9,000 entrants in the Boston race, and they set a scorching pace.
Each city in the Corporate Challenge Series – Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Frankfurt, Johannesburg, London, New York, Rochester, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney and Syracuse – was represented on the starting line in the beautiful Back Bay section of Boston.
For the first time since the current format was installed in 2010, Frankfurt won two team titles in the same year. And Chicago made its debut in the winner’s circle.
Frankfurt’s Polizei Bayern earned the men’s team title. The four-man team was led by Patrick Karl, who covered the 3.5-mile (5.6km) Boston Back Bay race course in 16:45. His teammates were Mario Wernsdorfer (17:45), Dominik Karl (17:53) and Benjamin Wegler (18:31). Their collective time was 1:10:54, and allowed Polizei Bayern to finish ahead of second-place finishers PwC of New York (1:12:47) and third-place Aon of London (1:13:07).
The women’s champions were also from Frankfurt, Bundespolizei. Eva Scheu (21:18), Yvonne Conrad-Hebel (22:04), Katharina Grunert (22:17) and Diane Heise (23:35) collaborated on the 1:29:14 Championship effort, and they needed every bit of speed and energy as New York’s Bloomberg was just 20 seconds behind in 1:29:34. Macquarie Group of Sydney was a solid third in 1:34:51.
Northern Trust of Chicago won the mixed division, with Nic Aubert leading the way with a time of 18:16. His male counterpart Dan Dolney contributed a 19:41 and the team’s two women, Katelyn Draths and Colette Terhune, clocked 21:36 and 22:49 respectively. That 1:22:22 collective time bested second-place Gerson Lehrman Group of New York (1:23:23) and Stada Arzneimittel of Frankfurt (1:23:34).
The best of the best individually on this night of champions were Matthew Leach and Emma Davis, representing San Francisco and Sydney.
Leach, running for Google, won the men’s race in 16:38, outkicking Bayern’s Patrick Karl (16:45) and third-place runner Jon Bleday of New York’s PwC (16:49). It was Leach’s first Corporate Challenge Championship individual title.
Davis, representing the London office of EY, was also earning her first individual title at the Corporate Challenge’s most prestigious event. Her winning time of 19:58 held off outstanding performances from second-place Lexy Gilmour of Sydney’s Westpac (20:22) and Ashley Nevol of Corning in Rochester (20:44).
The J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge Championship was first held at the New Jersey Meadowlands in 1983. It moved to Wall Street in lower Manhattan for one year, 1984. It then began a 24-year run on Park Avenue, in front of JPMorgan Chase’s world headquarters. All those races were held on Saturday mornings, typically in October.
Since 2010, the Championship has adopted an “Olympic-style” rotation, and has been held on the same night of the regularly-scheduled Corporate Challenge. Nine different cities have now been visited in this rotation: Johannesburg (2010), Singapore (2011), Chicago (2012), Rochester, NY (2013), London (2014), San Francisco (2015), New York City (2016), Frankfurt (2017) and Boston (2018).
Full individual and team results are available here with a search feature for your favorite runner or company.
Where will the next Championship be? Details on the 2019 J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge Championship will be announced following the completing of the 2018 Corporate Challenge Series.
