The third annual Silberreiher-Trophy 24 hour and Seewinkel-Challenge 12 hour race was held May 24-25, 2003. The drafting event was held two weeks earlier than last year to allow some of the European RAAM riders to participate as well. The start/finish area and race headquarters remained in Gols close to the lake Neusiedel east of Vienna, Austria. The course was reduced to a 19,8 km loop to allow an even higher pace than in the years before.

A group of 41 solo riders and 16 relay team riders started the 24 hour event at 10:30 a.m. At that time the 12 hour racers were already on the course for two hours with 43 solo riders and five relay teams. The weather was sunny and hot with highs up to 32 degrees C. The wind conditions were more difficult than in the years before with a very strong south-east wind blowing over the flat vinyards of the region.

The race pack.

Due to the short laps the relay team riders set a brutally fast pace in the beginning with nearly 42 km/h average. Jure Robic, Manfred Prokop and I (three solo 24 hour riders), followed this lead group. The five kilometer stretch between Halbturn and Frauenkirchen was especially grueling since the wind coming diagonal from the left did not allow efficient drafting of the team riders. In lap three a part of this group with Prokop and myself could not follow the leading pack anymore. The new group was a bit slower but was riding very inconsistently. The relay team riders didn't want to do the pacing alone and tried to let the solo riders work as well. As soon as the pace dropped too much they accelerated in a quite brutal way again. After five hours of this hectic riding I was completely blown. With a 30 minute break I recovered to a reasonable level but my motivation did not recover at all. After another two laps I decided to abandon the race.

Jure Robic from Slovenia was not bothered by the heat and wind and could follow a small group of relay team riders which was fighting for the second position in their race. He rode to an unchallenged victory in the men's 24 hour solo event with an amazing 910,8 km in 23h 42m 32s. There was just one critical moment for him when a careless car driver caused him to crash. Luckily, nothing serious happened . Johann Maedl from Austria rode consistently to a second place finish with 772,2 km. Third place changed a few times during the race and finally belonged to Severin Zotter from Austria with 752,4 km.

The solo winners

The women's 24 hour solo race was dominated by Susy Meyer from Switzerland. She had a personal relay team setting a consistent pace perfectly adjusted to her. She rode 732,6 km in 24h 11m 31s which gave her the sixth position in the overall solo competition.

Last year's 24 hour solo winner Marko Baloh from Slovenia participated in the 12 hour relay team category together with 2001 winner Herbert Meneweger and their wives. Baloh did 90 percent of the riding as his last hard training prior to RAAM and they won their category with 475,2 km in 12h 4m 30s. Baloh was involved in the same crash as Robic. Luckily, he got off lightly as well.

The 24 hour relay team competition was won by Team Harreither VAV (Reinhard Hoermann, Matthias Buxhofer, Peter Schwab, Thomas Wittner) who completed 950,4 km in 24h 11m 39s.