BROTHERS TAKE FRIENDLY RIVALRY GLOBAL

AS THEY COMPETE IN FRENCH IRONMAN RACE

Press Contact: Steve Royek

Phone: (856) 797-1270

Email: sroyek@goguardianinsurance.com

(June 22, 2010) – What started as a high school wrestling competition has gone international as two South Jersey brothers prepare to leave for Nice, France, and this weekend’s sixth annual Ironman event on the French Riviera.

Andrew Whipple, 36, president of Guardian Settlement Agents, a Marlton-based title insurance agency, and his older brother, Christian, 38, a Runnemede school teacher, both are competing in the event. It’s the first Ironman for Andrew; the sixth for Christian.

“Ryan (30, a third Whipple brother) and I used to regularly beat up Christian in practice for our Paul VI High School wrestling matches,” Andrew said the evening before getting on a plane for Europe. “But ever since Christian started competing in the Ironman events, we have been looking up to him.”

In preparation for the event, Andrew has been training almost daily since the beginning of the year and he has competed in what are called Olympic-style events, which include a swimming course of nine-tenths of a mile, a 26-mile bicycle course and a six-mile run.

This is in contrast to the standard Ironman course of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run. That’s the same course upon which Andrew, Christian and 2,500 other athletes will compete this Sunday, June 27, in southern France. Ryan is going along to cheer his brothers to the finish line.

“I’m hoping to achieve a time of 13 hours and 55 minutes, which was Christian’s time in his first Ironman competition,” Andrew said. (The winning time in the 2009 Ironman-Nice was 8 hours, 30 minutes.) Christian previously has competed in five Ironman races: Two in Lake Placid, NY, as well as events in British Columbia, Canada, Germany and Switzerland.

A third former wrestler from Paul VI, Steve Hershen, a native of Turnersville and currently working at New York University, also is competing in the race and is traveling to Nice with Andrew, Christian and Ryan. It’s the second Ironman for Steve, as he competed in the competition in Switzerland with Christian several years ago.

“The four of us all were wrestlers at Paul VI, and it always was intense. As we compete in races now, we often think about our Coach Papa, our wrestling coach,” Andrew said. “He would always tell us to ‘look good and feel good’ and we never used to know what he meant. Now that we’re adults, it makes perfect sense.”

The Whipple brothers also race with another inspiration, the memory of their late father who was a track star at Pennsauken High School and at Ohio Northern University.

“When we run,” Andrew said, “we always say we’re running for Dad.”

On the starting line with the two Whipples and Hershen will be the male and female defending race champions, Marcel Zamora of Spain and Martina Dogana of Italy. Counting Zamora and Dogana, there will be nine previous Ironman event winners competing in the Nice race.

Host county France leads the way in race entrants with 1,204, followed by the United Kingdom (489), Spain (374), Belgium (163) and the United States (135).  About 60 percent of the competitors are foreigners, with 90 percent of the field coming from Europe. The race will be covered in the United States on the Versus television network.

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