Mazars announces winners of 2023 STEPS Team Challenge

Chill Insurance winners - Ross Whyte, Peter Sunderland, Ken Byrne and Kenneth Daly.

The challenge, which ran from 16 January - 12 February 2023, saw 711 teams of four completing 755,297,823 steps and 525,972 kilometres during the four-week virtual walking challenge. Teams completed a virtual route around the circumference of Ireland, starting and ending in Dublin while hitting key milestones like Giants Causeway, Croagh Patrick and Killarney national park along the way. We teamed up with the Big Team Challenge app which tracked each team members real steps throughout each day.

Combined, the teams:

• Walked to the moon, and almost back to earth. (384,400 km to the moon)
• Went around the world 13 times (circumference of the earth 40,075 km)

The winning team, ‘Stepping on Up’, from Chill Insurance, completed 4,314,168 steps overall, averaging 38,519 steps per team member each day. That equates to 3,068 kilometres over the four weeks, which is two loops of the virtual route around Ireland.

The winning team received Premium Six Nations match tickets for Ireland vs England, and Mazars will make a donation to their chosen charities:

Everyone who completed the route was entered into a draw to win some great prizes. The top prize was a stay for each team member plus a guest in the five-star Marker Hotel, with dinner in the award-winning Brasserie restaurant. The prize went to ‘Jigsaw Wicklow’, from Jigsaw, who completed 2,233,233 steps and 1583 kilometres.

Jigsaw winners - Nicky Russell, Holly Flynn, Rebecca Heslin and Eimear Ryan.
Commenting on the challenge, Tom O'Brien, Managing Partner of Mazars, stated, "I would like to congratulate our winning team, Stepping on Up, and all the competitors of this year's Mazars STEPS Team Challenge. We were delighted with the response and amazed at the number of steps completed across the four weeks. The sheer number of teams entered, combined with the incredible distances covered, indicate the competitiveness and dedication of all who took part. Most importantly, the event is a fun and positive way to start the year, and one which we look forward to further growing in the coming years."

Huge thanks to our support partners Rob Heffernan, Olympic medalist and world champion walker, Chloe Watkins, Olympian and Irish women's field hockey international, and Gareth Mullins, head chef at the Marker Hotel who all provided great advice and content to support our competing teams.

We look forward to hosting an even bigger event next year.

Get in touch if you or your organisation are interested in taking part in our 2024 STEPS Team Challenge, and we will send you more information nearer the launch in December 2023.

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