Speedsters hang in on gruelling AFRICANX day two

If day two of the THIRSTI AFRICANX offered trail specialists an opportunity to shine, it also gave the road runners a chance to stretch their lead. Which is exactly what they did on Saturday morning (March 27).

Day one leaders Eric Ngubane and Juan van Deventer, making up the Nedbank No 1 team, romped to their second stage victory to all but secure victory at the 2021 version of the event. Their win was more surprising than day one’s 24 km pillar to post speedway that allowed road specialist “visitors” to blitz the course.

Day two’s 32 km offered enough technical climbs to provide the trail specialist teams opportunity to get back into the race.  Thabang Madiba and Renier Grobler (Murray and Roberts), Rory Scheffer and Bruce Arnott (Salomon Eurosteel) and AJ Calitz and Bernie Rukadza (K-Way), all strong trailers, pushed to do just that.

The road specialists, all hungry for race time after a season of frustrations due to COVID-19, were not going to let technical challenges cramp their style, however. Nedbank’s Lloyd Bosman and Ettienne Plaatjies repeated their runners-up position, finishing three minutes back.  Lesotho-born Big Box runner Retsepile Khotle crossed the line ahead of the second team, but in a team snaffle, he left his teammate Siviwe Nkombi too far behind to avoid a one hour time penalty.

“I was feeling completed exhausted at the 18km refreshment station,” explained Nkombi. “So I told Retsepile to carry on as I was going to quit. But then people encouraged me and I got back into the race but finished too far behind unfortunately.”

Ngubane, known as a specialist ultra-distance athlete with a strong trail pedigree, showed surprising speed to mix and match it with the fastest in the field and was there to lead the breakaway when the going got tough in the second half of the race.  But several continuous days of training and racing without rest took their toll and he struggled to overcome leg cramp towards the end of the stage.

Nonetheless, Ngubane and Van Deventer take a lead of almost four minutes into the final stage and unless the Southern Cape duo can produce a miraculous performance, the race looks done and dusted.  The Murray and Roberts pair of Thabang Madiba and Renier Grobler are another five minutes behind in third overall.

Earlier the Nedbank 3 team of Malusi Dlomo and Raoul Mabirimisa led the runners through the 18 km refreshment station, back at the start at the Wildekrans Estate, but they were unable to hold the big guns over the tougher second half of the race and they faded to finish eighth .

The Stellenbosch Triathlon pair, Danette Walley and Vicky van der Merwe, dug deep to increase their lead over their Nedbank rivals Deanne Laubscher and Chrizell Roberts, finishing almost four minutes ahead to take a comfortable cushion going into tomorrow’s final leg. The leading women’s veterans team, Jeannie Henderson and Kate Rees, ran impressively to finish less than a minute behind the Nedbank team in third.

For sheer competition, the mixed category provided the most interest, with 2016 Comrades Marathon champion Charne Bosman and her strong-running partner and triple Rhodes Ultra Marathon winner, Kallie Burger, turning the tables on their close rivals, husband and wife duo Nico and Natalie Sterk.

Following a conservative first leg, when they placed second behind the Sterks, Bosman and Burger upped the ante, opening a three-minute gap on their rivals over the fast initial 18km on the Wildekrans Estate, with another team of spouses and strong trail runners, Ryan Eichstadt and Sam Bieske aka the Badgers, just two minutes back in third.

As the fast jeep-tracks gave way to technical single-track climbing, so the Badgers came into their own, overtaking the Sterks and coming within a few metres of catching Bosman and Burger, just as the athletes reached the Kat-se-Pas jeep-track.

“We were moving well along the technical section,” explained Bieske. “I couldn’t believe we almost caught Charne – she is one of my heroes and I could not think of overtaking her!  And then they reached the runnable section on the jeep track and she was gone!”

Bosman admitted to struggling over the rocks. “I could hardly pick my feet over that section,” said Bosman. “We had planned to go out harder today and get an early lead.  But the second half was a different story and we slowed a lot. But luckily those final k’s were fast again, so we managed to hold on for the win.”

Story by Stephen Granger

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