Sören Nissen won the Roc Marathon of the Roc d’Ardenne bike festival in Belgium for the third time in a row on his STEVENS Sonora SL. The Danish Marathon Champion prevailed in the 82.7km (51.4mls) UCI World Series race including 2,350m (7,709ft) of climbing in 3:51:51 hours against a strong competition. The other podium places were won by Sascha Weber and Tim Böhme.

At the start no one had a clue ”how bad weather and terrain would become”, Nissen said after the race. Just the previous week in Houffalize, Belgium, the venue of the Benelux countries’ largest MTB festival it had rained and even snowed. ”This year it was a really hard race.”

Right after the start in Houffalize’s city center the course went up two steep kilometers albeit on asphalt. Then, in the first section through the forest ”everything turned to ’muddy black’.” Beginning at the start Team Wilier riders Tony Longo and Johnny Cattaneo cranked up the speed especially in the climbs, so after 20km they were in the first head group together with Sascha Weber. Knowing that the race would be very long, Nissen decided to stay in the chase group accompanied by riders of Team Centurion.

Halfway in the race Nissen began to feel better. ”I knew if I wanted to win I had to close the gap.” Within the following 15km he caught up after being 1:30 min behind. ”I still felt strong after having caught up with the head group.” The next climb already he would increase speed and shake off the two Italian riders.

Only Sascha Weber, runner-up in the 2015 European Marathon Championships, was able to follow. Nissen controlled the pace and launched an attack at one of the longest climbs 25km before the finish. The fact that Weber suffered a broken seatpost made it even easier to eventually increase his lead to 2:43 min and race to his third consecutive victory in the Roc d’Ardenne Marathon on his STEVENS Sonora SL. All results