Christoph Sauser

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  • http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bc/SBCBkFamily.jsp?sid=12EpicFSR&scid=1100&scname=Mountain

    S-Works Epic

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    S-Works MTB Helmet

    The lightest certified helmet in the world, worn by 2008 UCI World XC Champion Christoph Sauser...

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    MTB Shoes

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  • http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bc/SBCBkFamily.jsp?sid=12SJFSR&scid=1100&scname=Mountain

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    Tires

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    Saddles

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S-Works Epic

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

Pick n'Pay Cycle Tour, Cape Town

March 15, 2010

Hey, if you ever have the chance you should take part of the Cycle Tour as well! I love it, even we had to start at 6.15 in the morning. But that is one of the facts which makes it so specials too. We start in the complete darkness and racing into the sunset. Lance Armstrong was racing too, and he definitely created a huge hype this year. We even had more spectators out there. Every one of them tried to watch out for the fast Texan, but it was difficult for them, since we were so many riders dressed in red. By the way I felt pretty proud when I could hear spectators cheering me on with my name. Did not make the breakaway though! With about 30min to go, I was together with Burry when things started to explode up a climb with crazy winds. We had to fill in gaps of blowing riders, and then when we reached the top we excelled to super fast speed going down the other side. At that stage I could not create enough power at 120rpm any more. Burry just closed it with Austrian's Rene Haselbacher, and off they went with about 12 other top riders including Armstrong. After that it was steady racing to the finish. I might ended up 20th, with a time of 2.40hrs for 110kms. That means I was faster then about 35'000 other riders today. Sounds good isn't it!?

Stats for Christoph Sauser are coming soon.
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