Christoph Sauser

Christoph is the current UCI XC 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

Stage three, Pfronten-Sonthofen

June 4, 2010

Stage three, Pfronten-Sonthofen

55km, 1930m of climbing

2.05hrs, first place, around 1min ahead Albanator, first overall gc

Sunny and warm, what a relieve! No more baggy style, how fast, comfi and light did that feel!

Definitely light enough for a other stage win. I pretty much knew before hand it will all come down to the last asphalt climb, although the previous ones did a big selection already. They were ultra steep! Alban and I were the last survivors of the front pack, when we hit

that last climb. I was waiting for a good spot to attack, and quickly gained some time. But Alban would not be the Albanator, and giving up. I always seen him in sight, but thanks to my 29er I was super fast in the high speed downhills again, and gained even a little bit more

time.

The race here is super good organized. Today we even had a police escort in a BMW (535i) going down a twisty steep road. Siren was full on, and we raced each other. Wonder what would have happen if a "innocent" car would have come in our direction...

By the way I just had the biggest "flash back" ever, when I was riding to our Hotel here in Hindelang. In 1994 I raced a downhill world cup right here, right then!!! I remember it was pissing down for the whole time and we even had snow at the start. 3 Frenchys finished top 3.

Definitely Frank Roman and one of the Taillefer (or how ever you spell the name) brothers was up there!

Stats for Christoph Sauser are coming soon.