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| By Douglas Ryder on 2010/02/07 |
It was a busy weekend for the MTN Energade Squad. Full race reports to follow on mtncycling.co.za in the next few days.
MTN National X Country Series Race 1 in Rietvlei was not surprisingly won by U23 World Champion Burry Stander. Paul Cordes had some mechanical trouble but finished a credible 8th in the end. Yolande Speedy absolutely dominated the women’s event. She was leading by 4 minutes when she broke a pedal and then had to come from behind to take the lead again. She won by more than 4 minutes in the end. Mariske Strauss finished 3rd in the Elite Ladies event winning the U23 category and beating her arch rival Caitlin de Wet.
Kevin Evans dominated the VW EP Herald MTB Race in Port Elizabeth to defend the title he won a year ago. Juan van Heerden joined Kevin in PE to race the VW EP Herald Road Race this morning which Juan took in a sprint finish. It was a great double forthe MTN Energade boys although the road race was not all plain sailing with the full House of Paints team, Cycling South Africa U23 Team and local riders present to make things difficult. Kevin Evans won the KOM sprint and put Juan in a great position for the sprint finish which he took easily ahead of Dean Edwards from House of Paints. Kevin still finished 6th in the bunch sprint. Three of the MTN women, Lylanie, Cashandra and An-Li also travelled to PE but a mix up with the men’s bunch in the finish cost them a podium as Lylanie ended 4th . The event was won by Ashleigh Moolman of theBiogen Toyota Team.
On Saturday the rest of the MTN Energade men’s road team raced the Kormorant Classic over the feared Hekpoort climb. 12 riders went clear over the climb with 6 riders from the strong MedScheme team and only 3 MTN Energade riders, namely Christoff, Ian and Jaco. In the final kilometres, after covering many attacks from Team MedScheme, Ian put in a telling move that split the bunch but it was not enough to stop Malcolm Lange (Team MedScheme) from taking the victory. Christoff (MTNEnergade) finished 2nd which, under the circumstances, was a good result.
Today it was the same again in the Emperor’s Classic race over 103km with Malcolm Lange (TeamMedScheme) taking the win in a sprint finish ahead of Christoff van Heerden(MTN Energade). The women’s race was a different story though. With the team only back one day from the Women’s Tour of Qatar, it was always going to be interesting to see who had recovered. Trine Schmidt, the 20 year old from Denmark, was unstoppable. Trine initiated an early break and was joined by a rider from Biogen Toyota and Nashua. She soon realised that they were not contributing as much as she was so she attacked and went clear with 55km’s to go. The bunch swallowed the break in an attempt to catch Trine with the full Nashua squad taking up the chase. The gap stayed at 1m20 for 35km’s which seemed to take the sting out of the tail of the chasers. Trine, a superb time triallist, maintained her speed and power all the way to the finish to win by more than 8 minutes. It was her first victory in South Africa and the first for the MTN women in 2010. Robyn de Groot (Team MTN) came home in second place to give the team a great result literally 24 hours after stepping off the plane from Qatar.
In summary the teams did 9 races this weekend with 5 victories, 3 second places and 1 third place.
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