battled against the mountain and runner-up Mario Roman of Spain for two hours and 58 minutes - the only rider to finish under three hours .
The 24-year-old revealed : " When I cleared Lazy Noon ( checkpoint 26 ), I was like ' oh man , how sick is this '. Literally , the last push wasn ' t too difficult , and it was an unbelievable feeling . I ' m over the moon . It means so much that both my dad and I have won this race . Not many people will do that , it ' s such a cool story ."
Lettenbichler ' s win wasn ' t without challenges , as he struggled through checkpoint 22 , named ' Highway ', paving the way for Roman to draw close .
The German added : " The Highway almost killed me . I was the first guy in there and there were literally no lines [ to ride ], I had to dig some lines and put some trees up , because it was really difficult , and I made it a little bit easier for the rest . The race almost killed me in this point ."
Of the 500 riders who qualified for Sunday ' s main event , just eight mastered the 35.2km course within the four-hour time limit with Canada ' s Trystan Hart third behind Lettenbichler and Roman .
In comparison to Lettenbichler ' s start-to-finish win , Roman produced a fightback after falling backward at the mass start , which saw the first 50 riders released into the race at once . The Spaniard drew
VOL . 7 ISSUE 7- JULY 2022 // PAGE 51