Step by step

It was that time of year again. From May 29 to June 2, the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences, in collaboration with the City of Zittau, hosted the third annual Health and Environment Days (GUt) . In addition to activities such as back screenings, the smoothie bike, the second city bike tour, and vegan soap-making, the first rematch of the pedometer challenge took place. In the challenge, seven teams of two—each consisting of university employees and city administration staff—competed to see who could take the most steps over the course of five days.

In the first challenge in 2016, the city administration teams narrowly secured victory with a total of 1,988,848 steps after 7 days and won the challenge cup by a margin of 56,000 steps. Last year, the city administration also prevailed over the university staff in both the individual and team standings, taking first place in those categories as well.

This year, the participants in the pedometer challenge were once again highly motivated and walked, walked, walked…At the premiere event as part of this year’s GUt series—the first university-city-company run on the HSZG campus—participants in the pedometer challenge also had the opportunity to send their step counts soaring even higher.

Participation was open to individuals and teams of up to four people, and the race covered a distance of eight kilometers. Rüdiger Cervinka from the HSZG, participating in the pedometer challenge with his teammates, took first place in the team standings at this competition.

In this year’s pedometer challenge, the rankings in the individual categories are as follows: The top three spots in the individual standings were taken exclusively by university employees. First place in the individual standings went to Professor Jörg Schulze (223,927 steps). Second and third place went to Mr. Stefan Renger and Susan Fiedler with 194,365 and 182,271 steps, respectively.

In the team standings, first and third place were also claimed by the HSZG, while second place went to the Zittau City Administration. With a total of 418,292 steps, Stefan Renger and Professor Jörg Schulze took first place. Second place went to Stefan Meyer and Heidi Eckart with a total of 304,391 steps. Third place in the team competition went to the Faculty of Natural and Environmental Sciences, with Susan Fiedler and Karen Kobelt totaling 329,200 steps.

Only one thing remained the same as last year! The overall victory in the Step Counter Challenge went once again to the Zittau City Administration, by a clear margin of 202,932 steps. The challenge cup thus remains with the City Administration and bears the inscription: 1,680,727 steps in 5 days.

The organizing team for the Health and Environment Days was delighted to see how ambitiously the competitors walked and would like to express its sincere thanks for their participation. Anticipation is already building for next year’s pedometer challenge.