African Continental Championships:

It’s always a special feeling for me to pull the Green and Gold outfit over my shoulders and the first opportunity we had this year was down in Durbanville for the 2014 African Continental Championships.

After the long journey down to the Cape, Paul and I met up with new team mates Gert Heyns, Allan Hatherly and Genevieve van Coller.  As always before a XCO showdown the build-up towards the actual 90minutes of racing was massive. Behind the scenes everything has to run like clockwork for us athletes to have the perfect race. Once again I have to compliment Epic Sports for fine tuning the Dogma beforehand and of course Paul for all the organization and motivation.

Oom Brian and his team did a great job with the course by adding some fun technical aspects to it. A couple of big jumps got every worked up, but in the end it all flowed very well. 

Allan showing off:

With the u/23 men battle scheduled for 15:20 only, it was tricky to stay relaxed and not to over analyze during the morning leading up to the race. After a little roller spin all that was left to do was to suck on some High5 nutrition while waiting to suite up.

The heat in the start chute was mad. So was the pace up the first drag with James Reid crushing it from the gun. Gert and I were able to hang on for a bit with a slight gap already over the rest of the field, not even halfway through the first lap. Unfortunately I made a slight mistake, lost my front wheel and went down around a lose corner. However with the adrenaline pumping, mixed with some self-inflicted anger it didn’t take long to close the gap. 

As we rolled through onto the 2^nd lap, James was off the front and Brendon Davids started moving up. I jumped onto his wheel, but still battling to get into a rhythm I couldn’t follow for very long. By lap 3 I managed to regain a comfortable stride and with no further hassles I crossed the line in 3^rd.  

It might not have been the most exciting race, but none the less I’m happy with the result considering the classy field.

Full results sheet: http://www.cyclingsa.com/App_Resources/Uploads/FILE00003120.xlsx

This weekend Thaba Trails will be hosting the first Gauteng Provincial and I’m excited to see all the fluo a[s]g MTB Academy members in action out there.

Cheers!

Adt