Christoph Sauser

Recent Christoph Sauser Videos:

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

We did not take it easy once!

March 23, 2009

Stage 5, 111km (with 2233m climbing), March 26th 2009

It is nice to start out on a hilly paved road for the first kilometers, but soon after we hit a big climb, where Burry and I tried to split up the field, especially isolating Team Bulls from their second team. This move quickly formed a group of about six teams riding towards water point two. It felt like we were on holidays compare to yesterday's full on chasing!! Bart and Jongewaard attacked in the feed zone! I have no idea why they did it, but probably you have to when your chances are getting limited...

Burry and myself did take it steady, leading for most of the time towards the fast roads an feed 3. The real racing started there, and everybody knew it. The cross country race was on, and the small field

broke into pieces over hard steep climbs towards the end. Despite racing so hard yesterday, we still felt very crispy. With about 10km to go, we finally chased back Bart / Jongewaard and rode the

victory in to the beautiful Oak Valley Estate.

We need a whole lot of luck, or even better “supersonic legs” in order to win the Epic. That fifteen minute penalty might be too great to make up.

Tuesday:

75km, 3.10hrs, First Place, a few seconds ahead Team Trek

Right from the start the course brought us up up a loose climb, and after a short descent we went up up up for ever again, but most of it carrying or pushing the bike. Sure in total I have been walking for about a hour, but in full ridged carbon bike shoes. It felt like going freeriding in autumn, where we push our bikes a lot too. At least the Specialized Epic feels super light on the shoulders compared to the Enduro bike with all the spares on.

On the very fast descent down that mountain, I had a flat tire. It took us about a half hour to chase down the leaders, together with Team Bulls, and Merida.

On the last two short climbs, under the lead of Burry we could break away again, and maintained the lead until the finish.

Now we almost have a lead of 7min. to the Bulls, but this is nothing compared to what still can happen in the next 4 stages.

Monday:

100km, 3.54hrs, First Place, 2.19min ahead Team Bulls

It was a bit tactical at the beginning, because there was a long flat stretch before mid way until we hit the real climbs. We preserved energy and hit it really hard on the last climb where we broke away, just 30min before the finish.

There were so many thorn bushes on the way. I had 25 of them only in my front tire. I don't know how you could have this race, before tire sealant was invented!?

Teams who had to change to tubes, they had been in huge problems, and a lot of them were forced to ride with flat tires all the way to the finish.

Unfortunately there are no more neutral tech zones, so what ever you need, has to be carried or lent from a other team.

Sunday:

110km, 4.50hrs, First Place, 2.13min ahead Team Bulls

When we hit the dirt the first time we got away with Trek/Brentjens. We did not lead once, but then broke away on the first real climb.

I felt super up Groenlandberg, this is almost a hour climb, but the descent was so rocky and for ever. Everything went numb!

On my stage profile the last 35km look easy and fast, but it took for ever and my energy went low. Burry also had a big side cut in his front tire with 10km to go. Luckily we were far ahead.

Today we have a nice camp side on the grass. Even I have a big lack of sleep I can not have my afternoon nap. The heart is still pumping, so as the air conditioning in the camper is vibrating. But there is no option to turn it off, otherwise I am getting roasted like a sausage!

Stats for Christoph Sauser are coming soon.
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