Thank you for your feedback!

Dear Graz athletes,

We would like to thank all of you for taking part in our survey in such large numbers. We are grateful for the incredibly positive feedback and also appreciate the objectively formulated criticism, which helps us to continue to improve.

 

In our office, ten dedicated people work to create a unique experience for you and to get better every year. Your participation in the survey gave us valuable insights that we will use and work on again for the coming year.

We would like to address the following points in particular:

LUGGAGE STORAGE: We agree that the waiting times were sometimes too long. For the coming year we will restructure this logistical challenge to offer you an improved service.

Unfortunately, this also means that we have to set stricter standards with regard to the size of the luggage. We will only be able to accept luggage up to the standard backpack size. Unfortunately, we will no longer be able to accept travel bags, suitcases, tennis bags and similarly large pieces of luggage.

MEDALS: We are truly sorry that we ran out of medals for the last few finishers. We were actually not prepared for such a large rush of participants when we had to order the medals at the beginning of January.

For everyone who didn't receive a medal, we'd like to let you know that we'll be happy to forward one to you. The medals are already in our office. Please send us a short email with your address [email protected], so that we can send them to you.

We immediately took the necessary steps and started working with a local producer in Graz, which enables us to reorder medals at short notice. As a result, the problem will not occur again in the next year.

DIGITAL START BAG: We are aware that putting together a "real" starting bag for 5.500 people sounds easy at first. However, we would like to give you a glimpse behind the scenes and reveal the following challenges:

Rubbish: Halls full of rubbish, especially plastic waste, goodies, many of which are disposed of right before the Gigasport. High personnel costs: We invest three days with ten people to pack these bags. GOODIES: In addition, sourcing high-quality content for the starting bag takes a huge effort, and many companies are unwilling to provide that many goodies. Having a bag full of flyers again doesn't seem like a better solution to us either.

We understand that the current solution of the digital starter bag does not satisfy you and we assure you that we will deal intensively with this topic and look for ways to improve the concept for the year 2024. Our goal is to find a more sustainable and at the same time attractive solution that meets your expectations.

SAFETY AT THE OBSTACLES: Your safety at the obstacles is our top priority. Our civil engineer checks all setups before the event to ensure they meet safety standards. However, we must note that this is an obstacle course and injuries can occur, most of which are beyond our control. For example, signs such as "Please do not jump" are sometimes simply ignored.

The best example: At the bag jump, crew members are ready to explain to the athletes how to jump correctly before each jump. Even if we tell each individual separately, this is sometimes simply ignored.

The "Perfect Wave" has been criticized several times for being too slippery. Changing the order of obstacles and placement in the city turns out to be more difficult than you might think. We would also like to point out that the Grazathlon also takes place when it rains, so you should be prepared for this when registering.

Our focus with the obstacles is on their feasibility for all participants. Nevertheless, we have some -few- very demanding obstacles such as the "Wand4+Panier" and the "Perfect Wave", because this aspect also constitutes an obstacle course. Any obstacle can be bypassed (except in the ELITE starting block). We don't force anyone to climb, run, or jump - we offer run-by options everywhere for the more difficult obstacles. For us it is the mix that makes the Grazathlon.

Your safety is important to us and we will of course continue to work on it!

We look forward to next year with you!
Your beat the city team!