David George, who spent the last 10 years as a professional road racer, claimed his first major marathon mountain bike race win at the Forest to Falls in Graskop at the weekend.
David George further confounded his critics when he continued his crossover from road rider to mountain biker by winning his first marathon mountain bike race, the 70km Mazda MTN Forest to Falls race in Graskop at the weekend.
The current South African road time trial champion and his Cape Epic partner and MTN Energade teammate, Kevin Evans, proved to be in a different class as they pulled well clear of the field on a muddy course that contained a high percentage of climbing to build a six minute gap and comfortably claim the first two positions.
A small lead group of four formed early on in the race, comprising Evans, George, Brandon Stewart (USN) and Marc Bassingthwaighte (Garmin DCM). Evans then attacked on a climb at 20km. Neither Stewart nor Bassingthwaighte responded so George waited until the gap was sizeable and then jumped across to join Evans.
“The gap went up to five minutes quite quickly and we just kept it steady until the finish,” explained George. “At the end it was a decision between Kevin and I as to who would win. Because I’ve never won a marathon race before, and because Kevin wanted to ‘pay off a debt to me’, it was decided I would go across the line first,” grinned George.
George’s time of 02hr35min13sec was fast considering most marathon distance races in South Africa take the winner around three hours to complete.
“Kevin and I have got really good form after The Epic and are hoping we can hold that form going into the South African road champs in East London this week,” said George, who will be defending his national time trial title.
In the women’s race, Carla Rowley (MTN Energade) secured a dominant victory over pre-race favourite, Yolande de Villiers (Cycle Lab Toyota) for her first Mazda MTN Series race win.
But it was an off-form De Villiers who took to the start line, fighting off illness with a course of antibiotics and leaving Yolandi du Toit (Garmin DCM) as the main challenger to Rowley for the lead. Both Du Toit and Rowley punctured towards the end of the race, but the latter had a big enough lead to hold on for the win, while Du Toit dropped out of the top three.
“I went out hard and took the early lead and just tried to maintain it,” explained Rowley. “I was getting time splits on the others which was encouraging but the puncture and a crash near the finish had me a bit worried. But luckily I had a big enough cushion on the others.”
De Villiers secured second place in 03:30:47 with top veteran Petruschka Constancon taking third place in 03:35:31, just two seconds ahead of the hapless Du Toit.
Round 3 of the prestigious series is the Mazda MTN Induna Marathon on 14 June in Hazyview. For more information on the Mazda MTN Series, visit www.fritzpienaarcycles.com |
