Peggy and Sandra Klose

Henri Lesewitz

· 29.08.2007

Photo: Urban Zintel

Peggy and Sandra Klose

They look the same. They stand together on the podium. Twins Peggy and Sandra Klose are the fastest duo on the marathon scene. Until recently, sport was their biggest distinguishing feature.

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She remembered the tears, the despair and that damned hut roof that didn't seem to be getting any closer. She re-imagined that miserable cramping feeling and that horrendous scree path that wound under her soles like a ball bearing. She relived everything in order to capture the most memorable day of her life on one square metre of canvas. "At this point, I just cried," says Peggy Klose (32), pointing to a steeply rising edge of colour that leads to a red blob. "I thought I was going to collapse." Last weekend, she used crumpled paper, glue and paint to model her fateful mountain in 3D on a canvas. The red blob symbolises the roof of the Sankt Pöltner Hütte, the edge the scree path through the Felbertauern, over which the participants of the BIKE Transalp 2005 had to toil. For hours, in scorching heat, shouldering their bikes. It was 18 July, the queen stage. The day changed Peggy's life. "I want to give the picture to Sandra," says Peggy, allowing herself to be lulled briefly by a cloud of sentimentality before adding: "I'm so grateful to her for what she did for me."

Sandra doesn't know anything about her present yet. But she still has fond memories of 18 July. Two days earlier, she had hidden Peggy in the team car so that her carers wouldn't reproach her when they saw her sister looking poorly. It was the first of eight stages and the first race the two of them had contested together. Sandra, the national rider. And Peggy, the after-work athlete. The BIKE Transalp is considered the toughest mountain bike marathon in the world. The family project seemed destined to fail. Until the tarmac finally reared up steeply towards the Felbertauern on the third day. Peggy suffered as before. "But suddenly we were overtaken by a women's team whose leader was pulling her partner with a lead," recalls Sandra. She immediately jumped off her bike, bit open a spare inner tube with her teeth and dragged Peggy to the scree path. "There we put on our trainers and ran across the scree at full speed. Peggy was jet black, but a few hours later we were standing on the podium. We both cried with joy," says Sandra. They even came second in the final standings. The following year, they wore the leading jerseys all the way to the finish. The twin motto became a trademark. In the meantime, it has become a team of nine. But more importantly: "Once you've been through such agony as siblings, nothing can beat that strength," philosophises Peggy, dabbing a snowfield next to the Sankt Pölten hut with a paintbrush and wiping her paint-stained hands on her jeans.

She has to load the bikes into the van in a moment if she wants to be at Sandra's training centre in Stephanskirchen on time at 3 pm. The town is an hour's drive away. The sisters train together two or three times a week. Peggy herself lives with her boyfriend in the Munich area in a kind of manor house, the exact number of rooms of which she doesn't know by heart.

Ever since the Kloses started wearing the same jerseys, they have looked synchronised to a fault. Their hair is styled identically and shines in the same Sahara blonde colour. The highlights are blow-dried in the same direction. The stud earrings are from the same collection, as are the heart rate monitors and functional clothing. Recently, Peggy reports with amusement, her own friend Sandra mistook her for her and called "Hello, darling" to her sister. That happens often. Even professionally, the twins only differ in their postcodes: Since the Kloses joined forces as the "Zwillingscraft" team, sales representative Peggy has shared her territory with Sandra on a sisterly basis. Both sell orthopaedic technology in hospitals. Support cuffs with forefoot relief, vacuum areas and so-called gait modellers.

Because Peggy is in charge of professional matters and Sandra is in charge of sporting matters, they like to call each other "smart mouse" and "sergeant". However, the couple themselves consider themselves to be completely different. After all, Sandra has two more holes in her right earlobe and a slightly longer nose, while Peggy allegedly tends to have a hollow back. Sandra has a black cuddly teddy bear, Peggy a white one. So! Although the two became famous through sport, cycling was the biggest difference between them for a long time. When the Klose family moved from Görlitz in East Germany to Rosenheim in Bavaria shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the 14-year-old sisters initially found it difficult to fit in. "We were subliminally discriminated against because of our dialect. What's more, there had long since been established cliques in the classes that you simply couldn't get into as an outsider," recalls Sandra. And so, after school, they cycled through the Rosenheim hinterland instead of killing time smoking cigarettes like most of their peers. Their dad Peter, an enthusiastic road racer, gave them the racing bikes.

But while Peggy's enthusiasm for sport levelled off at leisurely occasional sessions, cycling became Sandra's purpose in life. Her first podium finish came in 1990 at the "Rund um den Eggenfelder Industriepark" criterium. Four years later, she was already wearing the national team jersey. Later, she travelled from mountain bike marathon to mountain bike marathon to collect the prize money. "Cycling was also an act of defiance towards my father. He had always teased us that this sport was not for women," explains Sandra, who decorated her two-bedroom flat with old Tour de France photos and named her cat "Pantani". Then came the bitter disappointment in 2004: although Sandra had fulfilled all the criteria for an Olympic nomination, the cycling federation did not want to send her to Athens. Probably because of a personal antipathy on the part of her coach, Sandra surmised, while the values on her heart rate monitor rose alarmingly. It took her a long time to digest this story, she says. Only the Transalp victory with Peggy helped her get over it.

Neither of them can remember exactly why they decided to take part in the race as a pair of twins. It was just a spontaneous idea. "I'm not really the racing type: I dread the starting gun, the start, the jostling around. It's all just stress," says Peggy, marvelling at her new passion. We have reached Stephanskirchen. Peggy parks her van in front of an apartment block and pulls "Gämse" out of the boot. "Gämse" is her bike. All bikes have names at the Kloses. Just like many other everyday items. That makes it easier to recognise them, laughs Peggy and greets Sandra, who is cutting the brake lines on her bike in front of the house entrance, with a big hug. In June, they will take part in the first edition of the Craft BIKE Trans Germany. Eight stages from St. Wendel in Saarland to Schöneck in the Ore Mountains.

They have spent the whole season preparing for this. But Sandra is unhappy. Her resting heart rate has not been lower than 55 beats per minute since the last marathon. Sandra pays meticulous attention to such details, which is why she almost never has a real resting heart rate. She is constantly pondering how to further optimise processes, material and form. Which tyres to put on when and how she could get down the descents even faster. Sandra has even commissioned a motorcyclist to assess the Trans-Germany route so that she has the right tyre tread for each stage. Peggy doesn't really care about such details. She wants to lose three kilos before the start. "And then we'll see." This imbalance in temperament has often driven Sandra to despair. She once worked for kilometres in the wind so that she could join a fast group of men on the descent, where Peggy then slowed down because a sign warned of marmots. "Brake! For marmots! In a race!" Sandra shakes with laughter. She would rather cut off the horns of a bull than let a group go because she loves animals too much. At Christmas, Peggy was delighted to receive five plush marmots and a T-shirt with a matching print.

The brake line is shortened. Peggy and Sandra roll off in their light blue twin outfits. They want to show the world again on 9 June, although Peggy will probably take a closer look at the landscape this time - in case she wants to turn her experience into a painting later on. Until recently, she had hardly any memory of the ascent to the Sankt Pöltner Hütte. That's why she hiked up again. When Schlaumaus thanks Feldwebel, every rock should be in the right place.

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Photo: Unbekannt

PROFILE

AGE/SIZE/WEIGHT: Sandra: 32 years old (as of 2008)/1.64 metres/58 kilos - Peggy: 32 years old (as of 2008)/1.60 metres/55 kilos
JOB: Sales representative (both)
TEAM: Twincraft
SPONSORS: Ideal Bikes, Craft, Subaru, Oped orthop, Vischgau Bike
SUCCESSES: Sandra: World Championship bronze marathon (2003), European Championship silver marathon (2004), DM bronze cross country (2004), German champion cross country team (2003/05) victory BIKE Transalp Challenge (2001 and with Peggy 2006)
FAVOURITE FILM/MUSIC: "The Godfather"/Pink Floyd. (Sandra) - "Who dies earlier, is dead longer"/no specific CD. (Peggy)
LAST HOLIDAY: Training camp on Elba (both)
BIKING MEANS TO ME: To have fun and preserve a piece of childhood. (Sandra) - Fun, relaxation, being in nature. (Peggy)
MONEY MEANS TO ME: Money is important, but so are happiness and contentment. (Sandra) - Right and important in reasonable amounts. But I find the saying "money makes the world go round" sad. (Peggy)
HAPPINESS MEANS TO ME: To be able to enjoy life, to be healthy, to be able to share experiences with others. (Sandra) - To be successful at work and sport, contentment, lots of friends. (Peggy)
INTERNET:
www.zwillingscraft.com

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