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Thomas Frischknecht - World Cup Season

April 17, 2008

This year's Cape Epic in South Africa was again a race that had multiple purposes for me. First of all it's the right time to train and get in racing shape for the world cup. With 41 hours in the saddle in only one week I definitely got enough base training in that way. But doing this under the warm sun and the spectacular nature of South Africa, it all happened to be quite comfortable. My partner in this event was again mountain bike pioneer Tom Ritchey. We had a lot of fun together. And a lot of tough times too. The 966km and 19,000 meters of climbing was no walk into the park. Not for Tom and neither for a well trained pro. But we made it to the finish near Cape Town in 39th place (out of 600 teams), happy and in one piece. This shows that Tom is still very competitive at the age of 51 years. The other purpose of our race was to promote Tom's charity "Project Rwanda" www.projectrwanda.org<http://www.projectrwanda.org> . (German edition is online on www.frischi.ch

April 10th, back in Europe, I had the honor to present my own "Frischi signature line OAKLEY Radar" in Munich. I'm super stoked to have this opportunity to do something like this with the world's leader of sport performance eyewear. It's kind of a tribute to the long lasting partnership I have with OAKLEY. With a 19-year membership on Oakley's world athlete team, I'm the oldest one - from any sport. We talked about the evolution of the eyewear, from when I started out with the "Razor Blade" in 1990, till their last development the "Radar".


My boyz of the Swiss power Team had an awesome start to the season. Florien Vogel won the first two rounds (now the first three rounds) of the Swiss power Cup against top fields. Nino Schurter placed 2nd and 3rd showing that he is ready for the season too. The Swiss power Cup in Mittens on April 13th was my real start to the racing season. A good chance to test the legs before we jump into the world cup season. Teammate Florien Vogel made the hat trick by winning again and proved that he is the man to beat at the moment. Nino took a break before the WC races. Mathias Rupp won the juniors category and I placed 6th, witch is a good result in such a fast race after all the long distance stages of CapeEpic.

1 Florian Vogel Swisspower SUI 1:57:18
2 Martin Gujan Athleticum MTB Team SUI 1:57:52
3 Marco-Aurelio Fontana Hard Rock FRW ITA 1:58:37
4 Christoph Sauser Specialized SUI 1:59:49
5 Andreas Kugler Fischer-BMC SUI 2:00:13
6 Thomas Frischknecht Swisspower SUI 2:00:16
7 Lukas Flückiger Athleticum MTB Team SUI
8 Jean Christoph Perrod Orbea FRA

With the world cup in Houffalize, Belgium on Sunday April 20th, the first big highlight of the season is coming up. It's kind of the Paris-Roubaix of MTB. To win this race is worth more than any other world cup race. I'm not hunting for the win, but I'm going into my last battle in the Ardennes with a positive feeling. At least I know I did my job to be ready for it. Now we will see how it turns out.

Ride on

Frischi

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