Sasol’s women’s race – SA pair in lead in Cape Epic

BY JONATHAN ANCER, MARCH 16 2016

THE Absa Cape Epic celebrated its 100th stage on Tuesday with Team Bulls continuing its march to overall victory.

However, a puncture on a technical descent 10km from the stage’s finish saw the pair of Karl Platt and Urs Huber roll across the line in second place, nevertheless gaining ground on their rivals in the general classification. The stage’s win went to Epic first-timers Nicola Rohrbach and Matthias Pfrommer of Team Centurion Vaude by Meerendal 2, who crossed the line in a time of 4hr 16min 48sec.

Pfrommer and Rohrbach were ecstatic, whooping with delight. “We are totally destroyed after that ride. But very happy,” said Rohrbach.

The two professional mountain bikers only came together about a week before the event started, and even then, as support for Team Centurion Vaude by Meerendal’s Hermann Pernsteiner and Daniel Geismayr.

Pernsteiner, though, had a fall on Monday’s stage one, which opened the door for Pfrommer and Rohrbach to win the Epic’s centenary stage.

“Hermann had a crash yesterday,” said Pfrommer, “so, the plan was for him to start and then tell us that they would go on, or if we must go on.”

At the stage’s first serious climb, a near-20km trek up an old wagon trail over the Witzenberg mountain range, Pernsteiner realised he was in trouble, and instructed the “back-up” team to race on.

Third place went to the Italian pair of Samuele Porro and Damiano Ferraro (Team Trek-Selle San Marco A).

For much of the race, there were four teams in the leading bunch including SA’s Darren Lill and Waylon Woolcock (USN Purefit), until Lill’s chain broke about halfway through the stage. The pair scaled back the tempo, and Team NAD Pro MTB’s Gawie Combrinck and Nico Bell took the chance to be the first South Africans to cross the line.

But Lill and Woolcock remain in front, about 5min ahead of Combrinck and Bell, in the race for the red Absa African Special Jersey. Team Topeak Ergon Racing, endured another bout of bad luck, when Kristian Hynek’s shoe broke early in the stage. After trying, and failing, to fix it, they had to wait for their back-up team so Hynek could take Erik Kleinhans’ shoe.

Finishing in one red and one black shoe, the replacement also too small, Hynek said: “My foot is on fire, it’s burning. When these things happen, you always think the race is over, but we have to get over it because we don’t know what will happen next.”

Meanwhile, in the Sasol Women’s race, two-time defending champions Spur-Specialized’s Ariane Kleinhans and Annika Langvad took the stage win, snatching the overall lead from the South African-Swedish pairing of Robyn de Groot and Jennie Stenerhag (Ascendis Health).

Ascendis Health had a 58sec lead at the start of the race, but now Kleinhans and Langvad are leading the category, 3min 17seconds to the good. Sally Bigham and Adel Morath (Topeak Ergon) were second and Sabine Spitz and Yana Belomoina (Sport for Good) took the third spot.

“It feels amazing to be back in the orange jersey,” said a beaming Kleinhans. “This morning I was confident we could do something, but when Sabine and Yana went ahead on the first climb, I thought it was going to be a long day. I remembered from 2011 that the last climb goes into a long descent and is quite technical — I thought that’s where we could decide it.”

Wednesday’s 103km stage takes the riders from Tulbagh to Wellington.