Written By: Team Manager Bobby Behan

Photos: Gary Perkin

When we arrived in Andorra on Tuesday the heavens were pouring down on us, but thankfully the weather picked up through to Friday. The forecasters were not wrong though and dark clouds filled the skies on Saturday morning and race day. In the women’s race there was a fair amount of rain, but things did dry up for the men’s start. Tire options are always a topic of discussion in such changeable conditions, but Christoph seemed to make the right choice!

I asked Christoph I think the night before the race, when the last world cup at altitude was held. We could not work out a specific date, but in my third season with Specialized there have been none until today. Racing at 2000m metres was going to affect some riders for sure, but Susi’s diesel engine, finely tuned in the Swiss Alps was ready to go into turbo mode.

A good start by Susi found him in fourth position about one kilometre into the first lap of seven, but by the end of the first lap, Susi had already broken clear of the entire field. A small group did form about 25 seconds back, with Burry Stander (Susi’s South African compatriot in The Cape Epic) pushing the pace at the front. It was great to see Burry commanding things in this position. Susi continued to show his dominance as the laps progressed, albeit for a young South African who was fighting hard! The twenty year old South Africa started to eat into Christoph’s 45 second lead, which naturally started to worry us all! The lead eventually settled at 10 seconds, until on lap six Susi suffered a rear wheel puncture – Burry also had a crash on this lap, but it did not deter him! I got a shock when over the radio, Benno sent the message Burry leading, Susi in second 30 seconds adrift! Alarm bells beckoned! Susi had one and half laps to prove his worth, while the young South African was riding on fire. It took Susi one lap to show why this could be his 13th World Cup win in his career. He caught Burry with half a lap to go and showed his experience to win by about 8 seconds. Burry was very pleased with second and deservingly so, with a fast finishing Geoff Kabush placing third. The World Cup Overall leader Julien Absalon finished 11th and maintained his overall hold on the standings.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 1st, 2008 at 11:45 am and is filed under categories: Burry Stander, Burry's World Cup prgress, Chrisoph Sauser 2008 Season, Christoph Sauser, World Cup Races, bobby behan and tags: , Andorra World Cup, bobby behan, Burry Stander, Christoph Sauser, Specialized Factory Racing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.