Online Exclusive: '08 Fort Bill World Cup XC

Burry Stander leads the pack off the start Colin Meagher

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Men’s XC race

After a quick break in the action, it was time for the men’s race. Under a blazing sun, the pre race call up started, with Cristophe Sauser in the number one spot. Julien Absalon won’t be racing any more world cups until after the Olympics so the competition looked to be coming from the Swiss Power squad and Burry Stander of GT.

From the gun, Burry looked to be pulling a MHP move—charging hard to the front to lead the main group up the first hill, but from there, it turned into a dual between Burry, Sauser, and the Swiss Power squad—minus Thomas Frishknecht (an early race mechanical DNF'd "Frishy"—you know he’s not having a good race when he starts making jokes with you while he passes you on the course).

A lead group formed quickly: Stander, Nino Schurter, Florien Vogel, Sven Nys, and Jakob Fuglslang. From lap to lap, they’d swap leads, with a chase group of Todd Wells, Adam Craig, Frederik Kessiakoff, and Jean Peraud hot on their heels. Geoff Kabush had some kind of mechanical, because he was off that group by quite a bit, as well as Jose Hermida. Not sure what happened to those guys, but they were off the back by half way through lap one.

Sauser took the lead in lap 3 and managed to hold onto it for most of the rest of the race, but the Swiss Power boys were not letting go that easily—hanging only a few seconds back. As they headed out for their sixth and final lap, Sauser had them right on his wheel. Waiting at the finish, you’re never really sure who’s got it until the lead moto comes into the final stretch… and it was Florian Vogel, a mere two bike lengths ahead of Nino Schurter, with Sauser back by another 9 seconds. I’m not really sure what happened on that last lap, but somewhere out there, the Swiss boys must have poured it on.

The final podium was Vogel, Schurter, Sauser, Jakob Fuglsang (Cannondale), and Burry Stander—the “new” kid on the block appears to be making the podium a regular thing.

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Adam Craig hot on the heels of Lado Fumic on the last lap. Colin Meagher