Absa Cape Epic Kicks Off Friday
Nine-day bike race through South Africa attracts tough field of mountain bike, cycling and XTERRA champs.
Posted Mar. 26, 2008
On Friday, March 28, 1,200 riders from 41 countries will embark on a gruelling, adventurous nine-day journey through South Africa’s Western Cape as part of the Absa Cape Epic presented by adidas.
Competing in teams of two, bikers will ride 966km from the Garden Route town of Knysna to Lourensford Estate in Somerset West near Cape Town, where they’ll arrive Saturday, April 5. Along the way, participants will climb approximately 18,529 meters, including some of the most magnificent passes in South Africa.
This year brings the most competitive field in Absa Cape Epic history. Since the pros who completed last year’s race had excellent results in the UCI MTB World Cup, many national team trainers are sending their top athletes to this esteemed stage to prepare for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. One of the top contenders is Christoph Sauser, reigning world and European mountain bike marathon champion. Sauser, who has 11 World Cup wins and won the 2006 Absa Cape Epic with his friend and fellow Swiss rider Silvio Bundi, will team up with Burry Stander this year, the current African and South African XC MTB champion. It will be Stander’s first Cape Epic and the first time these two will race together as a team to raise funds for the Songo.info charity.
Other top teams include: the first Olympic Gold medallist Bart Brentjens with Alban Lakata (Dolphin), the 2006 Marathon World Cup winner in Mont Saint-Anne; last year’s Absa Cape Epic winners Karl Platt and Stefan Sahm (Bulls); former ACE champion and multiple World Cup winner Roel Paulissen and the reigning U23 XC MTB world champion Jakob Fuglsang (Cannondale Vredestein 1); multiple Swedish champion Fredrik Kessiakoff and the 2004 Marathon world champion Massimo Debertolis (Full-Dynamix-RSM); Rune Høydahl, who claimed 11 World Cup victories in his career, and Kristian Torgersen (Høydahl 3); living mountain biking legends Thomas Frischknecht and Tom Ritchey (Project Rwanda); former Pan American champion Jeremiah Bishop and Chris Eatoph, winner of the 2007 BC Bike Race and six 24-hour solo world titles (Trek VW); multiple TransAlp champion Carsten Bresser and former Team Telekom star Udo Boelts (Rocky Mountain/ Cube); marathon specialist Pia Sundstedt and multiple world champion and World Cup winner Alison Sydor (Rocky Mountain Girls); two-time Pan American champion Susan Haywood and XTERRA triathlete Jennifer Smith (Trek VW WSD); and South Africa’s top contenders, Kevin Evans who placed third at the 2005 Absa Cape Epic, and three-time Giro del Capo winner David George (MTN Energade 1).
The American XTERRA duo of Josiah Middaugh and Greg Krause will also compete.
Out of the 600 teams participating in this year’s Absa Cape Epic presented by adidas, 61 percent will start in the Men category, 25 percent in the Masters category, 10 percent in the Mixed and only 4 percent in the Ladies category. More than two thirds of the field are from South Africa; 91 percent of the riders are male, 9 percent female.
Article Tools