![\"ccs-62657-0-23854900-1571299793.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-62657-0-23854900-1571299793.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nHeadlining the elite women\u2019s category are the defending champions Candice Lill and Adelheid Morath. Lill has continued on from her strong 2018; securing her first senior South African title and is the highest UCI ranked rider lining up in the 2019 FNB Wines2Whales events. The South African XCO champion will continue her successful partnership with 2019 Swiss Epic champion Morath, who stormed to victory in the five-stage race, which took place in the Graub\u00fcnden canton of Switzerland in August.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, we’re returning to defend our title, but it does not add any pressure\u201d Morath revealed. \u201cI see it as a gift to be the team which sets out to defend the title. We will do our best and race all out. After the race we will see which team will win the title in 2019\u201d the German rider pragmatically stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also enjoy the feeling of teaming up with such a strong woman and as a result I want to give my very best [to support Candice Lill]. In stage races it’s not all about a once-off performance \u2013 you have to perform well every day. The challenge is to take care of yourself, your bike, your partner and the team around you, which supports you, throughout the race\u201d Morath advised.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe season has been quite long \u2013 beginning with the Cape Epic in March \u2013 with no break in between \u2013 until my final race of the season, at the end of October with FNB W2W. I’m honestly a little bit tired mentally and physically, but I\u2019m still very motivated about it\u201d she confided. \u201cI’m coming with a lot of self-confidence, taken from the Marathon World Championships in September. I missed the bronze medal there by just 1 second and finished in an unlucky fourth position!\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman who pipped Morath to third place in the XCM World Championships is South African, Robyn de Groot. De Groot will be racing alongside dormakaba teammate Amy McDougall. The pair come into the FNB Wines2Whales straight from a general classification victory at Berg and Bush, in KwaZulu-Natal, where they held off Galileo Risk\u2019s Sarah Hill and Theresa Ralph to claim the title.<\/p>\n
In Ralph\u2019s absence, Hill will be teaming up with Danielle Strydom for the 2019 race. \u201cAs much as I love the Western Cape, I unfortunately don\u2019t get many chances to visit; however, that\u2019s part of the reason why I\u2019m so excited to be racing the FNB Wines2Whales\u201d Strydom enthused. \u201cThe province is known for its amazing mountain biking trails with their spectacular scenery. I know that W2W will take us through the cream-of-the-crop of those trails and I cannot wait! It will be my first W2W, but from what I hear, I think the routes and trails will suit my riding style; as I love singletracks and the challenges of climbing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Hill and Strydom, the Fairtree-Rotwild, SA Roadtrippers and Ghost Factory Racing teams feature untested line-ups. Swedish XCM champion and former FNB Wines2Whales champion Jennie Stenerhag will start alongside Nadine Rieder for Fairtree-Rotwild. SA Roadtrippers will be represented by the South African\/German combination of Katie Lennard and Laura Stark. While Barbara Benko and Catherine Colyn are another international\/local duo.<\/p>\n
\u201cFNB Wines2Whales is my last target of the season and it fits perfectly as I will stay in South Africa after the race, for a little bit of a holiday\u201d the Hungarian XCO champion, Benko explained. \u201cI love South Africa and the weather will be good there too, as we will enter winter in Europe soon. I have a bit more of a reason now to stay longer too, as my boyfriend lives in South Africa. It will be time to reconnect again after the long season and spend some quality time together. Plus, I have a new, South African, coach. So, it makes sense to stay there, do some testing and planning with him for the next season. All-in-all racing FNB W2W is quite a winning situation for me!\u201d<\/p>\n
In order to match the winning rationale off the bike with results on the bike at FNB Wines2Whales, Benko and Colyn will have to best the Kross Spur team. Swiss XCM champion Ariane L\u00fcthi, will team-up once more with New Zealand\u2019s Samara Sheppard. L\u00fcthi, who needs no introduction to South African mountain biking fans, but the woman from the Land of the Long White Cloud is somewhat of a dark horse.<\/p>\n
Having placed fifth in the XCM World Championships in 2019 after racing to third in the Swiss Epic, alongside L\u00fcthi, Sheppard is in formidable form. Unlike most of her rivals, her racing season does not end with FNB Wines2Whales either, as she is targeting The Pioneer, fuelled by Nutri-Grain in her native New Zealand in December. The friendly Kiwi is also a proven stage racer, having secured victories in the Australian \u2013 Port to Port, Reef to Reef, and Cape to Cape \u2013 Epic Series races.<\/p>\n
The final team, making up the formidable FNB Wines2Whales elite women\u2019s line-up, is the pairing of Alice Pirard and Sabine Spitz, who will also be flying the dormakaba flag. Although an untested pairing, the Belgian \u2013 German team appears on paper to be a strong one as Spitz recently claimed a top 10 finish at the UCI Marathon World Champs and Pirard secured second place at the Swiss Epic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With a whopping R252 500 in prize money up for grabs, including R100 000 to the winning team, it is no wonder the 2019 FNB Wines2Whales Chardonnay race has attracted a stellar field from across the globe. Boasting national champions aplenty and a World Championship bronze medallist, it is without a doubt the strongest ever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-15307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-wines2whales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15307","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=15307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15307"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=15307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}