In the women's race, Ariane Kleinhans finished fourth (+11:14), just missing out on precious metal. Norway's Gunn-Rita Dahle-Flesjaa celebrated her tenth world title in 3:34:13 hours, 3:18 minutes ahead of defending champion Annika Langvad from Denmark and 9:30 minutes ahead of Germany's Sabine Spitz.

Alban Lakata took the lead on the first six-kilometre climb, which began at the start, but made up even more time on the following descent. His pursuers probably didn't believe that the man from Lienz would be able to hold on to the lead for the entire distance and at first no one made any energetic efforts to chase him down. Christoph Sauser was unable to do so at this point. He struggled with the mountain air and was unable to keep up with the pace. "I had to fight extremely hard for the first two and a half hours. I was left behind a few times. But I know that will change at some point. That's why I stayed calm," explained Sauser. Lakata's lead over the chasers grew to 1:30 minutes up to the Passo Pordoi (around km 30). There, the ten-man chasing pack had already broken up and Christoph Sauser began to gain strength. At the top of the pass, Sauser caught up with the German Markus Kaufmann and went into the long descent to Canazei in fourth place. He left Kaufmann behind and closed the gap to Hector Paez and former world champion Periklis Ilias (Gre). "From then on I knew that I was riding for a medal," said Sauser in the press conference. Ilias was no longer able to keep up with Sauser and Paez in the last 45 minutes and it was all about silver for the man from Sigriswil. With an attack a few kilometers before the finish, he pulled away and secured second place. "I waited until the last moment and it worked. Alban was stronger today, I would have needed my very best day to beat him. To end my career with World Championship silver is very, very nice. ", said Sauser.
He had certainly thought about the fact that it was his last race as a professional. "But it didn't make me any faster," said Sauser with a grin.

Lukas Buchli from Felsberg finished in ninth place (+9:42) and was quite happy with that. Buchli started the race cautiously and then steadily fought his way forward. "I showed a great race and am very satisfied. I just didn't want to overdo it at the start. Ninth place is the best world championship result of my career," explained Buchli at the finish line.

Women: Ariane Kleinhans fights in vain for bronze

In the women's race, too, the final classification is already clear in the first six kilometers. Given the toughness of the stage, the competitors were looking for their own rhythm, which meant that Annika Langvad did not want to hold on to Gunn-Rita Dahle-Flesjaa's rear wheel with ultimate consistency. As a result, the 42-year-old Norwegian's lead grew to over two minutes before Langvad reduced it to one and a half minutes on the third climb. However, Dahle-Flesjaa was able to increase her lead again over the last twelve kilometers, especially on the downhill. For the most successful female mountain biker of all time, it was her sixth long-distance world title and tenth overall. She was last marathon world champion in 2013. Behind this duo was the 2008 Olympic champion, Sabine Spitz. Then came Ariane Kleinhans. The Swiss athlete, who lives in South Africa, was not far away from bronze for a long time, but she was unable to catch up with Spitz over the next three hours, even if she did manage to close the gap by just under a minute at one point. Britain's Sally Bigham approached from behind, but Kleinhans was the stronger rider in the final. Despite a crash. "I'm pretty happy with my performance. It's my best World Championship result and the line-up was better than last year. I've never been this close to the front before. I was hoping a bit for a medal, but Sabine would have had to suffer a collapse," said Kleinhans. Esther Süss finished seventh (+18:20). "That wasn't my day. The legs were good, but I didn't get enough air. It was probably the altitude. I didn't do any altitude preparation. When I realized that I couldn't ride for the medals, I thought about giving up, but my head didn't allow it. So I used the rest as training," said the athlete from Küttig.

Link to the results:

Gents:
https://www.datasport.com/live/?racenr=17687&m=rl&k=1&p=-1&r=-1&f=1&t=-1&o=-1&n=&pl=&te=&b=&dt=20150627115137000&dtc=0&rc=0

Ladies:
https://www.datasport.com/live/?racenr=17687&m=rl&k=2&p=-1&r=-1&f=1&t=-1&o=-1&n=&pl=&te=&b=&dt=20150627115528000&dtc=0&rc=0