{"id":16532,"date":"2017-07-18T18:45:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-18T17:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2017\/07\/18\/2017-university-sports-south-africa-road-cycling-champs-r6750\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T06:34:25","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T06:34:25","slug":"2017-university-sports-south-africa-road-cycling-champs-r6750","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2017-university-sports-south-africa-road-cycling-champs-r6750\/","title":{"rendered":"2017 University Sports South Africa road cycling champs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the 10-14 of July Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) and the friendly city of Port Elizabeth hosted the University Sports South Africa (USSA) road cycling championships. This three-day tour around the city included 5 stages: short stage, time trial, long stage, hill climb, criterium and a new additional stage, a cross country type mountain bike stage.<\/p>\n

The short stage took riders along the coastline for 75km for the men and 57 for the ladies. Gert Heyns (Maties) and Frances Du Toit (Maties) quickly establishing their lead in the men\u2019s and ladies\u2019 categories respectively.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-50183100-1500403118.jpg\"<\/a>Final Sprint in the short stage for the men.<\/span>
Short Stage Results<\/strong>
Men \/ Ladies<\/strong>
1. Gert Heyns (Maties) 2:04:48 \/ 1. Frances du Toit (Maties) 1:46:38<\/span>
2. Rinus Maarsingh (Maties) 2:05:53 \/ 2. Nicola Giliomee (Maties) 1:46:55<\/span>
3. Max Sullivan (Maties) 2:06:07 \/ 3. Elmari de Wet (Tuks) 1:46:46<\/span><\/p>\n

Later that afternoon riders were introduced to the challenges provided by the wind during the 12km time trial. The results and GC remained relatively unchanged with Heyns (Maties) and du Toit (Maties) retaining their lead in both categories.
Time Trial Results<\/strong>
Men \/<\/strong>Ladies<\/strong>
1. Gert Heyns (Maties) 17:11 \/ 1. Frances du Toit (Maties) 19:56<\/span>
2. Arno du Toit (Varsity College) 18:12 \/ 2. Nicola Giliomee (Maties) 20:40<\/span>
3. Ian Lategan (Maties) 18:13 \/ 3. Elmari de Wet (Tuks) 20:50<\/span><\/p>\n

Day two took riders through the long stage where both the men\u2019s and ladies\u2019 categories fought for the stage win with a bunch sprint as they neared the final stretch towards the finish line. This time Max Sullivan (Maties) came out victorious after the 116km in the men\u2019s category and Frances du Toit (Maties) in the ladies\u2019 category after their 91km stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-47587700-1500467859.jpg\"<\/a>Final sprint for the men in the long stage<\/em><\/span><\/span>
Long Stage Results<\/strong><\/span>
Men \/ <\/strong><\/span> <\/span>Ladies<\/strong><\/span>
1. Max Sullivan (Maties) 3:58:43 \/ 1. Frances du Toit (Maties) 2:54:39<\/span>
2. Rinus Maarsingh (Maties) 3:58:43 \/ 2. Kristen Louw (Pukke) 2:54:47<\/span>
3. Gert Heyns (Maties) 3:58:49 \/ 3. Michelle Benson (Tuks) 2:54:47<\/span><\/p>\n

Day three included a 2.4km hill climb and 39km criterium for both categories. GC leader, in the ladies, Frances du Toit (Maties) took a back seat in both stages as Kirsten Louw (Pukke) and Michelle Benson (Tuks) showed their endurance and strength over the few days taking the stage wins for the hill climb and criterium respectively. Arno du Toit moved up two places from fourth in the men\u2019s GC after coming second in both the hill climb and criterium for the men\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-02407100-1500467861.jpg\"<\/a>Ladies Criterium finishing sprint<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Hill Climb Results<\/strong><\/span>
Men \/<\/strong><\/span> <\/span> Ladies<\/strong><\/span>
1. Gert Heyns (Maties) 5:07 \/ 1. Kristen Louw (Pukke) 6:49<\/span>
2. Arno du Toit (Varsity College) 5:23 \/ 2. Frances du Toit (Maties) 6:54<\/span>
3. Wessel Redelinghuys (Varsity College) 5:23 \/ 3. Michelle Benson (Tuks) 6:55<\/span><\/p>\n

Criterium Results<\/strong><\/span>
Men \/ Ladies<\/strong><\/span>
1. Max Sullivan (Maties) 57:13 \/ 1. Michelle Benson (Tuks) 1:11:10<\/span>
2. Arno du Toit (Varsity College) 57:15 \/ 2. Kristen Louw (Pukke) 1:11:11<\/span>
3. Gert Heyns (Maties) 57:18 \/ 3. Nicolene Marais (Pukke) 1:11:11<\/span><\/p>\n

After three days of intense racing and close finishes the GC ended as follows:<\/span><\/strong>
General Classification Results<\/strong><\/span>
Men \/<\/strong><\/span> <\/span>Ladies<\/strong><\/span>
1. Gert Heyns (Maties) 6:53:11 \/ 1. Frances du Toit (Maties) 6:19:23<\/span>
2. Rinus Maarsingh (Maties) 6:55:56 \/ 2. Michelle Benson (Tuks) 6:20:42<\/span>
3. Arno du Toit (Varsity College) 6:56:03 \/ 3. Elmari de Wet (Tuks) 6:20:55<\/span>
4. Max Sullivan (Maties) 6:56:06 \/ 4. Kristen Louw (Pukke) 6:21:33<\/span>
5. Nico Thiart (Pukke) 6:56:14 \/ 5. Nicola Giliomee (Maties) 6:23:56<\/span><\/p>\n

Team Results<\/strong><\/span>
Men \/<\/strong><\/span>Ladies<\/strong><\/span>
1. Maties \/ 1. Maties<\/span>
2. Tuks \/ 2. Tuks<\/span>
3. NMMU \/ 3. Pukke<\/span>
4. Varsity College<\/span>
5. Pukke<\/span>
TUT *Not Classified, minimum three riders required<\/span><\/p>\n

Day four gave the mountain bike riders a chance to show case their stuff with this newly added stage not influential on the GC. This stage took place at Baakens Valley and was a 24km and 14.5km, for the men and ladies respectively, cross country type lap race. Arno du Toit took the title for the men\u2019s and Kirsten Louw for the ladies. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-11691600-1500403113.jpg\"<\/a>Men\u2019s mountain bike stage<\/span><\/p>\n

Mountain Bike Results<\/strong>
Men \/ <\/strong><\/span>Ladies<\/strong><\/span>
1. Arno du Toit (Varisty College) 1:05:39 \/ 1. Kristen Louw (Pukke) 47:49<\/span>
2. Rinus Maarsingh (Maties) 1:08:40 \/ 2. Frances du Toit (Maties) 49:52<\/span>
3. Max Sullivan (Maties) 1:09:03 \/ 3. Nicola Giliomee (Maties) 54:03<\/span><\/p>\n

A big thank you to Best Med for sponsoring the event as well as the individual sponsors for every team as such an event like this could never have been possible without their support.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the 10-14 of July Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) and the friendly city of Port Elizabeth hosted the University Sports South Africa (USSA) road cycling championships. This three-day tour around the city included 5 stages: short stage, time trial, long stage, hill climb, criterium and a new additional stage, a cross country type mountain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34787,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-16532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16532","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=16532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16532"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=16532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}