Jeantex Bike Transalp 2008
Team Bulls Dominate but Defending Ladies’ Champions Pull Out
24.07.2008
The defending champions have won the sixth stage of the 2008 JEANTEX BIKE TRANSALP powered by NISSAN from Naturns to Kaltern due to an impressive performance, celebrating their fourth stage victory. Right at the second climb of the king stage with its 97.35 kilometres and 3,929 metres of elevation gain, Karl Platt and Stefan Sahm from Team Bulls pulled away and continuously extended the gap to the chasing group. In the end, the clock stopped at 4:53:02.4 hours, about 8:30 minutes before the runner-ups Martin Kraler and Heinz Verbnjak from Craft and Friends/mountainbiker.at rolled in (5:01:28.9). The road cycling specialists Bjoern Papstein and Holger Sievers from idworx-offtraxx.net took home today’s third rank (5:03:17.6).Ravaged by the stage’s torture which was the hardest of this year’s mountain bike classic Stefan Sahm said: “It was way too much today. This stage was damn hard!� During the first five days, the dominating Bulls pros didn’t even seem to be that exhausted but “the heat did one last thing. It was brutal. And the final kilometres to Kaltern took ages. You look on your speedometer and notice that there are already more than 90 kilometres done but you still can’t see the finish.�
But at this point, Sahm and Platt were already all alone on the track. In the climb up to Felixer Weiher, the second mountain trial of this leg, the bearers of the Yellow Jersey were able to ride away. “We didn’t really initiate an attack but just pedalled our rhythm. In addition, the technical demanding downhills are also good for us� said Sahm.
Taking a look at the last two days, the 31-years-old added: “I hope we drew the battle lines and will be able to take it easy over the last stages.�
Team KTM aims for triple
They’ve already won the master category in 2006 and 2007 and this year it seems that Team KTM will achieve a three-peat. The sixth stage was mastered by Ekkehard Doerschlag and Heinz Zoerweg in 5:16:53.6 hours. Therefore, the two Austrians were 6:30 minutes faster than Scott-adidas-Naturns consisting of Walter Platzgummer and Johann Grasegger, who seem to have a subscription for the second spot (5:23:24.2).
Also for the last podium rank, it was once again business as usual as Team Generali consisting of Siegfried Hochenwarter and Georg Koch crossed the finish line as third (5:26:49.4).
Having gained a gap of more than half an hour in the masters category on runner-up Scott-adidas-Naturns, Team KTM is just afraid of unexpected things like defects and detours on their way to their third consecutive Transalp triumph. “A lot of things can happen still. For example today: we took a wrong turn. In addition, a flat tyre can cost a lot of time� said Ekkehard Doerschlag.
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