Africa-Press – Namibia. ALEX Miller won the Nedbank Cycle Challenge for the first time on Sunday when he beat the Dutch Paralympic cyclist Abraham Daniel in a sprint to the line.
Competing in perfect, overcast conditions, Miller finished the 100km race in two hours 22 minutes 15 seconds, to beat Daniel by a second to the line, while Gerhard Mans led in a chasing pack of 10 cyclists to clinch third place in 2:24:43.
He was followed by national champion Drikus Coetzee and Hugo Hahn in the same time, with Jean Paul Burger and Ingram Cuff finishing a second behind. Miller said the conditions were perfect for racing.
“It was a great race and the weather conditions were amazing. It was only over 100km, so I knew it would be hard from the beginning. There were a lot of attacks going on up towards Matchless Mine, and we managed to break away with a group of five, but then they caught us again with about 35km to go,” he said.
“After some more attacks, Abraham attacked with about 25km to go and at that stage everyone was really tired so they let him go and then I jumped across to join him. Luckily no one else followed and when I saw the gap I knew they wouldn’t catch us anymore and then I just held on to win the sprint,” he said.
“It’s one of Namibia’s biggest races, so I’m really happy and thankful to Nedbank for sponsoring the event and all the organisers who put it together,” he added.
The Cycle Classic also served as a selection race for the Namibian cycling team that will be selected for the Commonwealth Games in July, and Miller said he was determined to get a spot.
“Well, that’s definitely the aim this year, there are a lot of strong guys so anything can happen in the selection races, so I’ll just give it my all, and hope for the best.”
Daniel, meanwhile, is a member of the Dutch Paralympic team and at the Tokyo Paralympics last year won gold in the time trial and bronze in the road race in the C5 classification for cyclists with the least impairment. He has been training in Namibia for the past four years, saying that it was a great destination for training.
“I’ve been coming to Namibia for the past four years to prepare for international events, and I really enjoy it here – it’s the best place that you can have for a cyclist. Only sometimes there are some big trucks on the road that don’t care about the cyclists, but I hope that it will get better over the next few years and that they will start caring more about us,” he said.
“Namibia is a beautiful place, with beautiful people. I’d like to thank Mannie’s Bike Mecca who has always been supporting me, but there are many people and cyclists here in Namibia who have supported me, I cannot name them all, but it’s really an amazing place with amazing people, so thank you,” he added.
Vera Looser once again underlined her dominance of women’s cycling when she won the Elite Women’s category over 100km in two hours 52 minutes 29 seconds.
Looser, who recently won the national road race title for the eighth successive year, was followed home by Melissa Hinz (2:52:30) and Genevieve Weber (2:52:31).
The Nedbank Cycle Challenge, which took place for the 36th successive year, once again saw a large turnout of cyclists with close to 600 competitors participating in 20km, 30km, 60km and 100km categories. The complete results are available at raceday.events
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