20 YEARS OF ERZBERGRODEO
MYTHS, EMOTIONS, LEGENDS
20 FOR 20
Webisode 5: Cyril Despres
He was actually completely inconspicuous,
because at that time he came with a Honda.
So, I didn't know Cyril Despres at all.
So, I actually was at the goal,
saw that someone was coming down, ah, interesting, a Frenchman.
And days later he already wore a KTM-Displaying.
FIVE-TIME WINNER OF DAKAR RALLY
And KTM took all the best drivers, as everyone knows,
because they also win other Races today somewhere,
so Cyril Despres, for example, is one of them.
It's always a big joy, when someone comes
and has trained really hard, and wants to show off his abilities.
And I think, it's still there to date.
WON THE '02 AND '03 ERZBERGRODEO
He's just an extreme friendly
and an extreme communicative Person,
that really, really likes to communicate with his fans.
So, Cyril Despres was a athlete you could touch.
And then the industry recognized, aha, he is talented,
and took him somewhere else.
So, Cyril Despres actually got very famous with Paris-Dakar.
And then the Erzbergrodeo benefited from that as well.
And that's how you have to see it.
The performance of Cyril at the Erzberg was really amazing.
First he showed up at the platform,
then came back the following year, as a fresh KTM Factory Rider.
And I think, that what makes Cyril so special, is his mental strength.
SECOND PLACE AT HIS 2003 DEBUT
I still remember how I saw Depres for the first time,
already a company driver for Dynamite.
I thought I was going insane.
I've never seen anybody
riding on this kind of rocks, in this kind of place before.
I hadn't imagined that there was such a thing.
I think it was three years ago, when he started the last time
and did a great race
and ended up in somewhere at the top,
but then he drove the wrong way, unlike the others.
And then he said we had marked the track poorly.
And I said: "But why did the others find it, where you didn't?"
And he just didn't understand us, and he didn't want to
and he also texted me 10 or 15 times afterwards.
And he said he wouldn't come back.
Cyril Despres and the Erzbergrodeo are, let me put it like this,
temporarily separated.
I think that Cyril still has to settle a score with the mountain
and he wants to do that.
WEBISODE 6: TADDY BLAZUSIAK
The dream that a private driver with a borrowed motorbike
travels to the biggest extreme enduro event,
has to borrow a motorbike there,
because he doesn't want to crash the brought motorbike there,
and then wins the thing, that's such an absurd fairy-tale Cinderella story,
that really nobody thought that it was possible.
So, I just heard, that he's supposed to be good driver.
Nobody was able to pronounce his name, including me.
So, we said, okay, he should just ride.
WON THE RED BULL HARE SCRAMBLE 2007 AS A BEGINNER
It was like this: we had a event in the evening,
similar to an Enduro Cross.
And Balzusiag just attended with a trial bike.
And I saw it and said, "That is amazing."
And then I called Heinz and said,
we need a motorbike for someone who can win the Erzberg.
And he said, at first he asked me
if I had had something to drink.
I said, "No, there's really someone, I have him, really."
And he replied: "Are you serious?"
And I said: "yes."
Then he called the KTM
and they gave him a press motorbike.
That he really arrived first at the goal,
that was really an enormous surprise.
And let me tell you, with an unprepared motorbike,
that he wasn't used to, a remarkable performance.
I just remember that many of our press photographers,
many journalists, who stood next to the track, along the track,
that, when this guy drove by, they thought,
that is someone who took the wrong way.
Nobody could have imagined that he was the first one,
or maybe even the winner later.
Then Heinz was informed
that he had really won with the borrowed bike.
And I believe his fate was sealed.
Taddy Blazusiak, because he virtually won the Erzbergrodeo,
was then very, very well positioned in the media.
That was basically the beginning of his career.
RECORD HOLDER WITH FIVE SUCCESSIVE VICTORIES FROM '07 to '11
I can remember, until his last victory,
when he showed up really ill,
all of the other four wins were as if he was on a stroll,
completely effortless, light as a feather.
He won by very large margins.
I'd say that Taddy Blazusiak really, really fits into the event,
as a person, as a rider.
The orientation of those two forces,
Erzbergrodeo and Taddy Blazusiak, is very much on the same level.
They see eye to eye.