Simpson and McCann shine brightly in the Ultra-trail Cape Town 55km

Robbie Simpson and Toni McCann took the honours on Day One of the RMB Ultra-trail Cape Town this morning (Friday 24 November), racing clear of their rivals in the 55km ‘Peninsula Traverse’ which took place on Cape Town’s trails, beaches and green belts between Llandudno and Oranjezicht.

Apart from the ‘camera relay runners’ who ran with Simpson to bring the front-end action to the livestream feed and his enthusiastic TERREX Team supporters at aid stations, Scotland’s leading trail athlete, Simpson, was out on his own in his defence of the title he won last year.

The Scot made use of an early lead to survive a ‘dark patch’ in the middle section to hold off the challenge of Eastern Cape runner, Mvuysisi Gcogco, to win in 5 hrs 31 min 30 sec, half an hour slower than last year, partly due to the course being almost 2km longer and the warm and humid conditions which prevailed.

Not that this seemed to affect McCann, who gave another exhibition of world class trail running following her impressive victory at the UTMB OCC race over a similar distance in August. At one stage threatening to challenge for the overall race lead, McCann came home third overall in 5:47:39, over 30 minutes inside Landie Greyling’s race record from last year.

With leading Norwegian athlete, Yngvild Kaspersen, withdrawing before the start with a COVID infection, experienced campaigner, New Zealand’s Caitlin Fielder had a clear path to the podium, finishing nine minutes behind McCann after a strong second half, with German Lisa Wimmer taking the final podium position, 30 minutes behind Fielder.

Gcogco ran one of the races of his life, crossing the line at the traditional Gardens Tech Rugby Club finish just over 11 minutes behind Simpson, with Cape Town athlete, Joshua Chigome racing into third place.

“It mostly went well,” said Simpson, “I felt good for first two hours when I was trying to run within myself and save energy for second half.

“But I rolled my ankle going down Vlakkenberg and I eased off a bit to recover. For the next hour I went through a bad patch, struggling with my nutrition. I was physically sick, but then felt better and managed to get my legs back again.

 “For the last section, from UCT to the finish, I felt I was running well again and enjoyed feeling strong at the finish. It was great to have my Terrex teammates along the way to cheer me on. That gave me a positive boost of energy.”

While McCann’s performance impressed, she admitted to not being totally satisfied. A number of difficult situations had hit the adidas TERREX team in the build-up to the weekend, leaving  McCann struggling with her mental preparation. “It went as well as I could have hoped for, given my mindset going into the race,” McCann admitted.

“Up until Alphen Trail I was feeling really good, but thereafter things went a little wobbly! But I’m very happy to have held on to first place. I was also quite proud that I was able to run through my negative thoughts and bad headspace.” 

The Ultra-trail Cape Town 100 miler got underway at 17h00 yesterday (Friday 24 November) and the Russian pair of Aleksei Tolstenko and Vasily Korytkin were leading through Rocket Road, Llandudno, 47km into the race. French athlete Vincent Viet and South African Doug Pickard ran close behind in joint third.

South Africans Naomi Brand the Nicolette Griffioen were sharing the lead in the women’s race through Llandudno.

The overall winner is expected back at the Gardens Tech Rugby Club in Oranjezicht shortly after 13h30.

The UTCT 100km gets underway from Gardens Tech at 06h00 (Saturday 25 November) with the winners expected home around 16h30 while the Explorer 23km, the shortest and fastest of the festival of trail racing, starts from the Alphen Trail in Constantia at 09h00.

“It was a great day out,” said race director Stuart McConnachie. “We had an incident-free first race and it was clear the athletes enjoyed themselves out there, despite the warm conditions. Sadly we lost two world-class athletes before the start, with a leg injury preventing former Western States 100mile champion, American Rob Krar, from catching his flight to South Africa and COVID preventing Kaspersen from lining up at the start.

Race results can be found on https://sportraxs.com/races/1096/leaderboard

Video Interviews with the winners can be found here.

©spnafricanews