Belgium's Paulissen wins second consecutive marathon World Championship

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Roel Paulissen rode to his second consecutive world marathon championship on Sunday. The Belgian finished in 4:34:36 after completing a tough, hilly 104km course in Austria. Alban Lakata (Austria) finished just 51 seconds back in second while 2007 marathon world champion Christoph Sauser (Switzerland) was third at 4:39.

"This victory is a great moment in my life, and I was able to celebrate it during the last meters to the finish line," said Paulissen, who finished solo.

Riding in good form, Paulissen was near the front on the very first climb, where he chased Wolfram Kurschat (Germany). Paulissen caught and passed Kurschat on the descent. A few riders joined them and formed a group at the front, then Paulissen later escaped with Alexey Medvedev (Russia) on a downhill where the men were overtaking the women.

"It was simply chaos there, because we caught the women," said Sauser on his blog www.sauserwind.com. "They did start after us, but rode a shorter course, and passing was very difficult."

Lakata and the others worked hard to close the gap, and on that final climb, Medvedev gave indications to Paulissen he wasn't doing well. The Belgian powered away solo, yet he still had another 20km of descending to go.

"The downhill was not easy, but I put out everything I had," said Paulissen, who went into the day thinking he was riding for a podium rather than the win after suffering some recent back pain.

Behind Paulissen, the final downhill changed the podium significantly. Medvedev lost time - dropping to sixth - with a flat tire and so did Thomas Dietsch (France), who had crested the final climb in third, but ended up 11th. Lakata and Sauser took second and third. Christoph Soukup (Austria) and Kurschat were fourth and fifth respectively.

"The whole race felt like a cross country race, or that is how it felt to me," said Sauser. "The climbs were never ending, and for most of the time, you could only ride in the saddle because the ground was too washed out."

Pre-race favorite Leo Paez (Columbia) had a tough day and finished 10th.

"I was hoping for a better result," said Paez. "When it came to doing the race, I started to suffer cramps: in those conditions was very difficult to increase my pace with the other favorites. I had to keep my pace. Now I will concentrate on the season's final grandfondo-type events and possibly the cross country World Championships in Canberra."

Results