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FOR IMMEDIATE CONSUMPTION
Matzger Concedes Race, Wins National Championship
  
September 21, 1998
Even though team TWINCAM/Roces Eddy Matzger became the 100K national
champion for a third straight year at the New York City Marathon,
Sunday, September 20, 1998 in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, he still didn't
win the race. Frenchman Phillipe Boulard claimed the top honor with a
solo sneak in traffic after 8 out of 19 laps to finish in 2 hours 55
minutes.
Boulard profited from the race within the race to ensure his clean
escape. Uninterested in mounting a serious chase, the pack instead
played the rivalry between Hyper's Dane Lewis and TWINCAM's Eddy
Matzger.
Matzger and Lewis were responsible for chasing down each and the other's
breaks, with Matzger finally gaining the upper hand when Lewis legs
seized like cement as Matzger floored it up Heartbreak Hill at a pace
too torrid to follow.
"You're an animal," Lewis told Matzger after the race. "I had to hold on
to my quads they were cramping so bad," Matzger skated away from the
decimated chase group in fourth place and quickly began making up ground
on the leaders, but time ran out. Matzger time-trialed past Canadian
Peter Doucet in third and within a minute of 2nd place Frenchman Tristan
Loy to finish third in 2 hours 59 minutes. With his finish, Matzger
sewed up the #1 ranking in the 1998 National Points Circuit after
finishing 4th in 1997.
Matzger was besieged by happy campers after the race, all of whom shaved
hours and minutes off of previous personal bests. "I actually had fun!"
exclaimed one Sandy Gregory, who in '96 finished dead last in the dark.
"It was funny," said another multiple workshop participant, Laura
Zuckerman. "I heard packs of skaters yelling Eddy's workshop tips at
each other during the race, and it didn't make me feel so alone."
FOR IMMEDIATE CONSUMPTION
September 15, 1998
Record Numbers Skate Record Time in Duluth
  
More than 2,500 skaters jammed the roads in Duluth, Minnesota for the
third annual North Shore Marathon, Saturday, September 12, 1996. Three
skaters covered the 26.2 mile course between Two Harbors and Duluth in
under an hour, while thousands of others were pushed to record times by
a forceful tailwind.
Team TWINCAM/Roces teammates Eddy Matzger and Scott Baldwin finished were
outclassed by a trio of Team Rollerblade skaters, including eventual winner
and world champion Chad Hedrick. Matzger nearly latched on to the winning break
12 minutes into the race but faltered and drifted back to the chase pack.
After chances for retrieving the breakaway trio up the road faded,
Baldwin worked the pack over and set up his teammate for the field
sprint, which Matzger won decisively while Baldwin took second.
Matzger skated through the registration fair at the Duluth Convention
Center at periodic intervals with fireworks sparklers blazing from his
skates. He electrified the crowd with stories and technique tips
delivered over a portable address system clipped to his shirt. Eddy's
impromptu "mini-workshops" prompted hundreds of skaters at a time to
gather around and chow down on distilled nuggets of information.
A couple of hours after his finish, Matzger was still on his skates,
lurking behind camera scaffolding and jumping out to high-five as many
finishers as he could get his hands on. "I gave at least 1500
high-fives," Eddy claimed.
Eddy was captured by photographers giving his workshop administrator Bob Flynn
a huge hug after completing the course in a personal best time. The photograph
appeared on the front page of the Duluth News-Tribune Sunday edition, along with
extensive references to Matzger in the sports section.
FOR IMMEDIATE CONSUMPTION
  
September 7, 1998
Victory Snatched from Matzger at US 10K Classic
Team TWINCAM/Roces' Eddy Matzger narrowly missed a huge win at America's toughest 10K, the U.S. 10K Classic, on Monday, September 7, 1998. After rocking the pack with an explosive break on the last hill that netted a sizeable lead, Matzger was overtaken in the final meters of a downhill finish by a hard-charging pack of four skaters, of whom pint-sized Matt Steele was first.
Matzger finished second the previous 2 years in this race, and seemed primed for the victory this year. In fact, his lead over the last hill looked so secure that the announcer began declaring him the winner but had to swallow his words as the dogged chase group squeaked by with little room to spare.
"That was the most exciting finish that I've seen in a long time," said Henry Zuver of the 10K Classic organizing committee. "I talked with all the sponsors of this event who were in attendance and they really liked what they saw."
The 10K Classic course strikes fear in the hearts of racers. The challenging course is a straight shot, eight lanes wide, straight up and down seven Appalachian ridges along the Cumberland Parkway in Georgia. As a result of getting mercilesssly dropped last year, many notable flatlanders failed to show. Those who did were shown the ropes by Matzger and some unheralded amateurs who pushed the pace relentlessly from the get-go.
"You killed me on those hills," said Scott Hiatt, who collapsed in exhaustion after getting dropped on the final rise. Hiatt was third in '97. "I'm never coming back to do this race," complained the wiry Chad Burdzilauskas, this year's runner-up. "Give me a nice flat course with a field sprint," he said, "but this -- this was too hard."
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