Hendrik Pfeiffer (born 18 March 1993) is a German

long distance runner Long may refer to: Measurement * Long, characteristic of something of great duration * Long, characteristic of something of great length * Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate * Longa (music), note value in early music mensur ...

who competed at the

2020 Summer Games The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...

in the marathon. Pfeiffer ran at the

2016 European Athletics Championships The 2016 European Athletics Championships was held in Amsterdam, Netherlands, between 6 and 10 July 2016. It was the first time the Netherlands hosted the event. Due to 2016 being an Olympic year, there was no racewalking and the marathon compet ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

but failed to finish the race as he had a heel injury. The heel injury also kept him out of the 2016 Summer Games. He was again selected for the

2018 European Athletics Championships The 2018 European Athletics Championships were held in Berlin, Germany, from 6 to 12 August 2018. The championships were part of the first European Championships with other events happening in the United Kingdom. For the second Championships in a ...

but had to pull out due to injury problems. He won the 2017

Cologne Marathon The Cologne Marathon (Köln-Marathon) is an annual marathon held in Cologne, Germany. Since October 1997 the marathon has been held annually in early October, except for 2004, 2005 and 2014 when it was held in late September. History The inau ...

and at the Vivawest Marathon in

Gelsenkirchen Gelsenkirchen (, , ; wep, Gelsenkiärken) is the 25th most populous city of Germany and the 11th most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 262,528 (2016) inhabitants. On the Emscher River (a tributary of the Rhine), it lies ...

in 2018 Pfeiffer set a new world record for the fastest half marathon ever run in a suit. He ran it in 1:12.47 breaking the record by over five minutes. Pfeiffer was motivated to highlight the dual roles many athletes have to play of athlete and worker. Pfeiffer himself at the time was studying journalism at the

Technical University of Dortmund TU Dortmund University (german: Technische Universität Dortmund) is a technical university in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany with over 35,000 students, and over 6,000 staff including 300 professors, offering around 80 Bachelor's an ...

, and was a student trainee in the corporate communications department at a steel trader in

Duisburg Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in Nor ...

. Pfeiffer caught

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

and his training was interrupted but he was still selected to compete at the delayed

. On 23 February 2020 he had run 2:10.18 at the

Seville Marathon The Zurich Seville Marathon is a marathon held annually in the streets of Seville since 1985. It is organized by the department of sports of the town hall and sponsored by both public and private organizations. It was used as a host of the 1999 Wor ...

to meet the qualifying standard. In May 2024, he was selected for the

2024 European Athletics Championships The 26th European Athletics Championships will be held from 7 to 12 June 2024 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Italy. It will be the third time Italy has staged this sporting the event after the inaugural 1934 edition in Turin, for men only, and t ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

References

External links

* 1993 births Living people German male long-distance runners German male marathon runners Athletes (track and field) at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic athletes for Germany Athletes from Düsseldorf 21st-century German people {{Germany-athletics-bio-stub