The 2012 CRAFT BIKE TRANS GERMANY wrapped up today with a massive final spectacle. Although the old and new Trans Germany title holder Christoph Sauser (SUI) lost some of his advantage on the 78.05 kilometers and 1,731 meters in elevation from Seefeld, Austria, to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, coming in as eleventh ranked rider (2:49.24,8) of a true rain battle, the reigning Marathon World Champion finally secured his third consecutive title with a lead of one minute.
The 36-years-old Specialized Racing team member clinched the Trans Germany title three-peat after a total time of 11:20.29,3 hours which he needed for the total distance of 288.50 km (8,648 m Asc) from Sonthofen into the finish in Bavaria.
“It feels great to bring home the third title which I aimed for,” said the 2000 Olympic Bronze medalist in the finish area.
“I did a Cross Country race before I came to this event and wasn’t as fresh as I should have been. According to this, a real burden got lifted from my shoulders. It’s been long and hard four days.”
Especially as the dominating rider of this year’s Trans Germany was not only handicapped by the pouring rain today but did also totally underestimate the last climb to Hausberg.
“I never knew if I should put my glasses on or not. Then, I didn’t know that we would take a new routing into Garmisch, so I thought that we had reached the peak of the last mountain after one third of the ascent. But then, there were still some meters to climb, which for me never came to an end. In the final descent I didn’t risk anything,” summed up Sauser.
David George (RSA) of Redbank Team 360life, who secured the best climber title and thus the Green Jersey of the Bayerischen Staatsforsten powered by fi’zi:k, finished as runner-up of the overall ranking with a gap of only one minute on Sauser (11:21.29,3).
Thomas Dietsch (FRA) of Team Bulls, who had won the race in 2008 and 2009, rounded out the overall podium as third (11:23.46,7).
De Bertolis crowns early attack with day win
2004 Marathon World Champion Massimo De Bertolis was the fastest mountain biker of the final Trans Germany stage. After he finally was able to enter the stage without any physical problems, the Italian racer underlined his high class qualities in 2:46.36,6 hours.
Thomas Litscher (SUI) of Felt Ötztal X-Bionic, who had been accompanying the later on winning athlete of Autopolor Volvo Cannondale in a breakaway group, came in six seconds later. Due to his parforce runs of the last two days and today’s co-work with De Bertolis, the U23 World Champion definitely would deserve a “best fighter” award.
De Bertolis and Litscher had outpaced the field after the second downhill and had been in the front for some 60 kilometers until the end gaining an interim lead of more than 4 minutes on their pursuers.
“I’m very happy about my first ever Trans Germany stage win,” explained De Bertolis after the successful coup. “I’m glad that I was able to finally ride without any stomach problems.”
Daniel Geismayr (2:48.11,1) of Centurion Vaude finished in third position. In addition, the Austrian mountain biker’s team Centurion Vaude crowned an incredibly strong week with the title in the SCOTT Team Classification.
Just like the elite men’s winner also the strongest woman came from Switzerland. Milena Landtwing celebrated one of her career’s best results by mastering the total distance in 13:13.05,7 hours and thus ended a streak of back-to-back third place Trans Germany finishes.
“It is unbelievable. It was a very hard piece of work. It’s a very big success for me. I didn’t really expect to defend the Pink Leaderjersey over the course of three days,” said the Swiss National Champion. The Centurion Vaude athlete, who came in third today, edged off Elisabeth Brandau (13:17.40,2) and Silke Schmidt (13:19.19,6) to the second and third overall rank. In contrary, the two German notebooksbilliger.de racers celebrated a 1-2 punch on the final stage with Schmidt coming out first in 3:10.22,8 hours.
Andreas Strobel wrapped up his Trans Germany participation with a true victory lap. The Garmisch-Partenkirchen resident of Centurion Vaude not only won the last stage leading to his home town (2:49.32,2) but also the overall title in the 40+ classifier (11:40.28,5).
Today’s second rank as well as the overall runner-up position went to Carsten Bresser of CRAFT – Rocky Mountain. Heinz Zoerweg (AUT) of Team Factory Cube finished as overall third, while Andreas Laner (ITA) of Team Scott rounded out the stage podium as third.
The top-3 in the senior master category of the final day were also the ones placing on the overall podium of the classifier reserved for the oldest participants (50+). South Tyrolean Walter Perkmann of CRAFT and Friends underlined his outstanding role in this year’s race by finishing things off with his third stage win in the time of 3:10.43,6 hours.
Today’s results as well as the overall ranking of this year’s Trans Germany are already online: