Sock´n´Roll Dance Marathon - great succes!

Victory for Bärbl Kaufer and Marcus Koch

12 hours of Boogie-Woogie dancing - at first sight an unbelievable thing to do - but after all 10 couples of 11 in this Sock´n´Roll Dance Marathon did last for 12 hours. They were exhausted but overwhelmingly happy of their dancing at this Mannheim Rosengarten´s dance place.

But let´s start at the beginning:

The oldest sockmaker in the world, the company called ELBEO, wanted in the beginning of this year to be joined in dancesport. So they talked with the (representing)partner of DRBV (German Rock´n´Roll and Boogie-Woogie Union) the Mannheim´s Sportmarketing-Agentur May ProSports. A spectacular idea was found in tight co-operation with the danceunion: ELBEO Sock´n´Roll Dance Marahton for Boogie-Woogie couples. In order to gain as much publicity as possible the competition was held at the same time and place as the 12th German Open Championships. The May ProSports GmbH was responsible for the organisation in whole. DRBV´s vice-president Rudolf-Gerhard Karl was the leader of the competition. And Klaus Käbisch was the sports leader. Four judges were judging the couples by a special system.

There were 11 top couples from Germany, Austria and Switzerland starting the competition - among them the 1998 World Champions Andrea Schiffer & Michael Grimm as well as the runners up Bärbl Kaufer and Marcus Koch.
On Friday, 28th August 1998 at precisely 11 o´clock; the countdown was done and the couples began the adventurous Sock´n´Roll Dance Marathon. Nobody really knew what the result would be. Twelve long hours laid in front of the couples and those hours would only be broken for an individual pauseperiod of maximum two hours.

Everything was taken care of by the organizer: A team of physiotherapists took care of the muscles of the dancers. A three-member team of doctors, led by doctor Klaus-Jürgen Engler, was watching the couples all the time. They even made lactose measurements. More than 300 litres of liquids was acquired, in the end of the day each dancer should have drunk up to 15 litres of liquids.

The thing that nobody had expected happened: bit before 23 o´clock there were still 10 couples standing on the dance floor and they mobilised their last drops of energy with the help of hundreds of enthusiastic and wildly clapping members of the audience. Marcus Prister kept the audience going. It really was a Great Final. In the end the 6 kilo trophy "The golden sock" went to the extremely happy Bärbl Kaufer and Marcus Koch from München. Although they didn´t have the longest dancing time, their courageous and very energetic dance style reassured the judges so that they reached the first place. And now Bärbl and Marcus got an entry to the book of Guiness. In addition they got a prize money of 10 400 DM (about 31 000 FIM or 6000 USD) from ELBEO.

One more high light of the evening for all the competitors was most certainly the prize ceremonies and the winner´s dance in the Mannheimer Rosengarten´s big ballroom. In the prize ceremonies there was even a standing ovation for the couples. It was a touching moment. And one more goal was reached : ELBEO tested in this Sock´n´Roll Dance Marathon their new mens´ sock "CLIMA CONTROL." All dancers thought that the test was a succes. After this the socks can be called "tested in marathon". All competitiors and the various watchers were unanimous: It was a great event which the GOC had high lighted even more and Boogie Woogie sport got a great possibility to present itself to the public. We hope that the initiator and sponsor ELBEO can be a co-operative partner in Boogie-Woogie also in the long run because of these great results. Because of course every one who was in Mannheim wishes that this kind of a event would be organized also next year.