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Roger Königs

Founder of Wings for Athletes

WINGS FOR ATHLETS

“Wings for Athletes” founder Roger Königs is driven by the passion for track and field since more than 30 years. He started running at the age of 11, with his first love being cross-country running.

As a middle-distance runner in the youth division, he had moderate success, clocking 3.50 in the 1500m. His best distance however, was the 3000m steeplechase, where he dipped under 9 minutes a few times, with a personal best of 8.52, a silver medal at the Belgian Championships and a bronze medal at the Small States Games in Monaco (representing Luxembourg at the time).

As a roadrunner, he was a popular pacemaker for the elite women, among others at big city marathons like Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Münster, Kosice, Vienna…. He has a very soft marathon record of 2h21 (Seville 2016) and still dreams of collecting the six stars of the World Marathon Major series. So far he has already finished Berlin (2h22), Boston (2h27), New York City (2h29) and London (2h24)…all in the top 50! In 2020, he had his sub-elite bips for the remaining Majors in Tokyo and Chicago, but the pandemic decided otherwise. Story to be continued…!

In December 2022, after encouragement from his wife Ferahiwat – who is also an athlete, born in Assala (Ethiopia), the hometown of Olympic champions Haile Gebreselassie and Derartu Tulu – Roger successfully passed the World Athletics examination to become an authorized athlete representative. He holds a Master’s degree in Sports Science from UCL (Université Catholique de Louvain). Ferahiwat and Roger have 4 kids.

The name „Wings for Athletes“ is an inspiration Roger received from Belgian track and field athlete Lindsey de Grande (discover her own moving story: www.lindseydegrande.com). The name “Wings for Athletes” is based on the following values:

  1. The aim of this management is to give wings to the athletes :-).
  2. Wings contains the word WIN: every athlete wants to aim higher and to win…. Moreover, a win does not always mean a first place in the competition, but a win should be interpreted also as the realization of the individual potential.
  3. Last but not least, wings are a symbol of angels, and angels are related to the Christian values and ethics that have always been important in Rogers‘ life.