Africa-Press – Namibia. VERA Looser, Tristan de Lange and Mannie Heymans did their country proud with some great performances at the Cape Epic, one of the toughest mountain bike marathons in the world.
With this year’s event covering 620 kilometres over eight days and more than 15 000m vertical ascents, it was once again a gruelling affair, drawing the world’s top professional MTB riders, who will competing in teams of two.
In the senior women’s category, Looser and her South African partner Sarah Hill, finished the first stage in sixth place, but dropped down to seventh in the second stage in Ceres.
They finished fifth in the next two stages in Tulbagh to maintain their sixth position overall in the general classification, but after dropping down to seventh in the fifth stage in Wellington on 22 October, they staged a great comeback to finish fourth overall on the sixth stage. They completed the seventh and final stage last Sunday in sixth place to finish sixth overall in a time of 33:36:16.
The winners, Sina Frei of Switzerland and Laura Stigger of Austria finished nearly three hours faster in 30:39:52, while the South African duo Candice Lill and Mariske Strauss came second in 31:20:51, and Ariane Luthi of Switzerland and Robyn de Groot of South Africa placed third in 31:32:38.
Afterwards a relieved Looser thanked everyone who supported her. “Thank to everyone who made it possible and who were part of it. Conquering the Cape Epic doesn’t just take a two-man team. Ten days ago I met Sarah for the first time – we were the perfect match for this race and I definitely made a friend for life. Thank you Sarah,” she posted on Facebook.
In the men’s elite race, De Lange and his South African partner Marco Joubert finished the first stage in 12 place, but gradually improved as the race wore on. By the third stage they had moved up to 10th overall, and third in Africa, and despite finishing 13th on the sixth stage, they remained ninth overall. They finished seventh on the final stage on Sunday to finish ninth overall in 26:48:27, while they were also the second African team to complete the race.
Matthew Beers of South Africa and Jordan Sarrou of France won the race in 25:17:28, followed by the German pair Martin Frey and Simon Stiebjahn in 25:26:27, while Hans Becking of the Netherlands and Jose Dias of Portugal came third in 25:32:02.
South Africans Pieter du Toit and Philip Buys were the first African team home, finishing sixth overall in 26:22:23. Heymans, who made history in 2004 when he won the inaugural Cape Epic with Karl Platt of Germany, gave a great performance to finish third overall in the grand masters category with his German partner Carsten Bresser.
They completed the marathon in 31:26:25, to finish more than an hour behind the winners, Bart Brentjens of the Netherlands and Peter Vesel of Slovenia (30:15:36), while the Swiss pair Barti Bucher and Hans Juerg came second in 30:21:16.
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