![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1253863697_Photo1_KAPsani2c_1.fe8195fc57d47443f4abe46506e6b6d4.jpg\")
\n<\/p>\n\n\tIt was a sprint finish as the PYGA Euro Steel team of Matthys Beukes and Gert Heyns took the stage win at day one of the KAP sani2c today, in a time of 02:50:13, just two seconds ahead of teammates Philip Buys and Pieter du Toit. Matt Beers powered across the line just ahead of the second PYGA Euro Steel team but his teammate Wessel Botha was seconds behind and the pair had to be satisfied with third place for the stage (02:50:19).\n<\/p>\n
\n\tRiders set off from Glencairn Farm in Himeville on Friday morning and covered 82kms of mixed terrain and 1175 metres of climbing to finish at Mackenzie Club near Ixopo.\n<\/p>\n
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\n\tMatthys Beukes (right) and Pieter du Toit on Great Oke single track\u00a0(Photo Anthony Grote)<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\tPYGA Euro Steel\u2019s winning duo were very happy with their performance, says Matthys Beukes: \u201cIt was the three teams of us riding together, then it got a bit tactical with 15kms to go. It was tight racing, so I\u2019m glad we could pull it off with some smart tactics. It\u2019s good to have two teams in the top three.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tGert Heyns: \u201cWe both felt quite good today, but its very hard to get away. Tomorrow should be a rougher route so there is more opportunity and there should be a bigger gap. We already have a good gap with our two teams in the top three, so from here we can obviously go for the win.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n\tMatt Beers was content with third place for the stage: \u201cThe PYGA boys are on form so I knew it would be hard to get a gap. They have 4 riders so they can play a bit more of a team tactic, so Wessel and I had to manage ourselves. We only lost a few seconds at the end; you are lucky if you get a gap on the first day, so I think it went well.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n\tDay 2 presents riders will the best opportunity to get a solid gap, and as Matt says: \u201cThe Iconic Climb is probably where things are going to split up tomorrow, that\u2019s quite a decider. If they get away we can maybe pull them back, and if we get away we can maybe pull away.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tWessel Botha says of the sprint finish: \u201cAll three teams were on the limit as we approached the finish. Matthys was the strongest getting a gap, and when Gert kicked, it was just too hard for me to hold his wheel. I think we did a good job to minimise our losses and I\u2019m feeling positive going into tomorrow\u2019s stage. I really enjoyed the day, some super nice trails out there.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\t \n\tInsect Science Pro Cycling\u2019s Arno du Toit and Keagan Bontekoning were just over two minutes behind the first three teams, and are optimistic about tomorrow\u2019s stage. Du Toit\n<\/p>\n \n\tsays: \u201cFrom the start the pace was quite high on the gravel road. We were in the front split but Keagan was at the back of the bunch. We knew we had to be at the front on that first climb, so Keagan had to surge to get to the front. The effort was a bit much and we were just off the back before the climb. We got back to the leaders at the first water point, but after that they surged again and we were then by ourselves for most of the race.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI\u2019m confident we will be able to hold the gap, tomorrow is a long day, and we had a steady consistent effort rather than the surging of the front guys, so hopefully today hurt their legs\u00a0more than ours.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tImbuko Giant Pro Team of Marco Joubert\u00a0and Rudi Koen were fifth (02:56:47)\n<\/p>\n \n\tOne of the teams expected to perform well, DSV Pro Cycling (03:16:10), had technical difficulties and after a few kilometres Jacques Janse van Rensburg had to ride on only one gear until they could get assistance at the 40km mark. Janse van Rensburg says: \u201cThe GC race is over for us, but we just conserved energy and are now hoping for a good stage result.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n\tDominant performance in the women\u2019s race<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n\tRobyn de Groot (dormakaba) and Amy McDougall, both riding for team Motorlease Perigon, crossed the line a convincing eight minutes ahead of team Galileo Risk Infiniti SPOT (Theresa Ralph\/Kim le Court), in a time of 3:24:03.\n<\/p>\n \n\t \tDe Groot says: \u201cIt was a smooth day, we were surprised to get a gap quite early and broke away at the 10km mark. We found a rhythm and worked well together.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tMcDougall, when asked about tomorrow\u2019s stage, says: \u201cI took some shots today so I think we\u2019ll keep it steady and see how it goes tomorrow. I loved the day. The single track is insane, and as usual you can see a whole lot of effort from the organisers.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tTheresa Ralph says of their second place: \u201cI felt my legs were cold and I couldn\u2019t get them warm. When the girls attacked on one of the climbs they just went for it and I just couldn\u2019t get blood flow to my legs. It was one of those days where the body was not working according to what was planned.\n<\/p>\n \n\t \n\tAmy McDougall on the floating bridges on Mossbank Dam (photo Anthony Grote)<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cKim was amazing, she pulled me all the way. She can go out hard and fast so I definitely held her back, I think she could have stuck with Amy and Robyn to a certain point, but not me today. Tomorrow is a longer day and I tend to get stronger as the days go on, so I\u2019m hoping for that. So we\u2019re going to recover and give it a go tomorrow.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n\tLe Court says: \u201cLast year was my first sani and it was in the mud so this year I am really happy with the weather, and the scenery was beautiful. Awesome to ride with T with her experience, I learnt a lot. It was tough, but I really enjoyed it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tOn their approach for tomorrow\u2019s tough second stage that takes riders down into the Umkomaas Valley and up the \u201cIconic Climb\u201d, le Court says: \u201cWe should be careful tomorrow. The gap is pretty big; it\u2019s a long day and it climbs a lot, so I don\u2019t think we should burn ourselves too much. We will take our own pace from the start and not try and stick with them from the gun; we\u2019ll ride our own race.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tDanielle Strydom and Janice Venter were third in a time of \u00a003:54:55.\n<\/p>\n \n\tRESULTS<\/strong> \n\tWomen<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n\tMixed teams<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n It was a sprint finish as the PYGA Euro Steel team of Matthys Beukes and Gert Heyns took the stage win at day one of the KAP sani2c today, in a time of 02:50:13, just two seconds ahead of teammates Philip Buys and Pieter du Toit. Matt Beers powered across the line just ahead of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58574,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[53],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-14436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-sani2c"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14436"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=14436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1646661954_Photo3_KAPsani2c_1.7a9a735c8a7eca9e566b6f90ee37d5f9.jpg\")
Matthys Beukes (left) and Gert Heyns (photo Maryann Shaw)<\/em>\n<\/p>\n![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/238896677_Photo4_KAPsani2c_1.1d3dd1cd610319bcc5c3ca07f1fc4f4a.jpg\")
Amy McDougall (left) and Robyn de Groot (photo Maryann Shaw)<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1065229595_Photo2_KAPsani2c_1.6226ef8d50e21dc2494b35d82d49c90c.jpg\")
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