Christoph Sauser

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Christoph is the current UCI Marathon World Champion, a former World Cup overall winner, and Olympic medalist. Following is the story of his sporting background, told from his point of view.

Christoph's personal website is www.sauserwind.com.

"I grew up in a sport oriented family so I had a lot of support and encouragement to participate in many different sports from a young age. Some of my favorite sports when I was young were: rollerhockey, skiing, football and wrestling.

As a child I rode my bike a lot, but only back and forth to school. For me the bike was for transport and not really for pleasure. But I always appreciated that my bicycle was for me an efficient and independent form of transport.

When I saw a mountain bike the first time I got very excited as I could see the big potential of riding off road and having fun on the technical downhills. Before bikes came out with the triple chainring, climbing the steep trails to get to the top of the very fast downhills would have been impossible.

Since I had a long history in competitive sport it was natural for me to wonder what it would be like to race mountain bike. In '91 I found some information on a big mountain bike race in Switzerland called the Grand raid Cristalp. It looked like it was going to be a fun event for my first mountain bike competition. That race is a beautiful ride in the alps with a lot of competitors and for me that was a great experience. So I was excited to race a few more races in '91 and '92.

One night in a bar a friend of mine challenged me to apply for a racing license, and he even offered me to find a team to ride for. I started the '93 season as a member of the Parkpre team. It had just started that year and was perfectly managed. I raced for the Parkpre team for the first five years of my career.

In 1998 a big dream came through and I signed my first contract with a international team, Diamondback. That year was also the first time I stepped on a world cup podium, I won the U23 Euro Champs, plus finished second at worlds in the same category. I was very happy with my position on the team, but unfortunately the sponsorship situation for the next season was a little bit cloudy.

Lucky for me I had an offer from the number one team in the world in the name of Volvo-Cannondale at the end of the season. This of course was something I was very excited about and I had four great years on this team until 2003.

At that time Volvo pulled out of mtb-racing, but with Siemens-Cannondale I found another great team for the following 3 years, which was controlled under a completely different management. Only the bike was more or less the same.

Now I am going into the 4th year with Specialized Factory Racing team. We are a bunch of great people with the focus of racing and professionalism, but having lots of good fun next to it. With Specialized as such an innovative company we have the very best brand in our hands for winning races and being well promoted. We are Specialized!"

Biggest achievements:

Cross Country:
World Champion Italy 2008
Olympic Bronze Medalist Sydney 2000
World Cup Champion Overall 2004+2005
14 World Cup Wins
Vice World Champion 2005 and 2006, 3rd. 2001
Vice Word Cup Overall Champion 2002, 2003, 2008
6 Times Swiss Champion
European Champion U23 1998
Vice World Champion U23 1998

Marathon:
World Champion 2007
European Champion 2007

Achievements

2011 UCI XC Marathon World Champion

Stats

Marathon World Championships

August 9, 2010

Marathon World Championships St. Wendel, GER

108km, 3.50hrs, 27-28km/h average speed!!

5th place, 5sec off winner Alban Lakata

It was too flat, too drafting for me... but I did not expect that there will be so many guys coming together to the finish line.

During the whole race I felt great and did not have to suffer for longer times. Only at some stages when you had to do the switch from cruising on a flat road to a short sprinting uphill.

Naef, Burry and I we had some mini break aways at some hill combinations, but on the long straights we always got caught again. Sure I have also tried it by myself on the very last asphalt climbs, since I knew I will not win when it comes down to a sprint finish. But those two attacks did not get much air in between me and my competitors since it neutralized it again on the next flat section.

Alban who was dropped from the beginning on had a incredible come back and somehow just managed to get into be battle in time. He made a great move on the last big tar road close to the finish, and made like 10-15sec into us. I could not react any more, so as in the open sprint into the track & field stadium. I had no chance against the ex roadie sprinting missile Celestino.

Very glad for Burry who had a goood sprint on the track, even he was slightly off just before the last corners. Very well done mate! I wish I could sprint like you, then I would not have had to do any desperate moves on the last 10kms :-)

By the way I was on a 1x10 drivetrain. 40 rotor blade in the front, 11-36 cassette rear. Only one time over a rooty uphill I would have liked a small chainring, but it was only a short section.

Stats for Christoph Sauser are coming soon.
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