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Imke Oelerich,
German charm
27 years old, Imke Oelerich is a new face of
german triathlon. Currently living in Thailand,
she’s juggling between many activities such as
pro athlete, sport model, student and pilates
coach. After doing some horse riding, she started
triathlon in 2008 for fun and fell in love with it,
finding herself surrounded by great triathletes
and coaches who instantly inspired her. She
started serious training for triathlon in 2010. Six
years later, she was ranked 4th at the Ironman
70.3 Thailand for her first ever professional race
and found a new way of testing her limits and
setting new goals.
TrimaX-magazine : How do you find your
balance between yours studies and being a
professional triathlete?
Imke : That is sometimes hard. The past two years
lived in Miami, where I started my study program MBA
“Sport Revenue Generation” and run for cross country
and track races for the college team. Currently I am
finishing my Maters degree online, which gives me a
lot of flexibility, but I have several deadlines every week
where I need to submit papers and exams. When I come
home from training sessions I try to fit in short power
naps to be able to focus on my study work in between
or after the sessions. There is not much free time at the
moment. The days where the training load is soft I need
to focus on studying. But I can see the light at the end of
the tunnel and by the end of May I will “hopefully” finish
two master study programs. The second is by the way
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