Photo credit: Ewald Sadie | Sportzpics<\/span><\/p>\nAmong her many achievements, Spitz has won gold, silver and bronze medals at the Olympic Games and world championships in the cross country and marathon disciplines.<\/p>\n
After retiring from a distinguished road career in 2012 De Groot has won the national mountain biking marathon championship for four consecutive years.<\/p>\n
So how did the partnership come about?<\/p>\n
\u201cLast November (Team Ascendis Health manager) Malcolm Lange asked me if I’m interested in racing with Robyn. So that was a great opportunity for me,\u201d Spitz says.<\/p>\n
The pair only met last year at the Cape Epic: \u201cBut we are in touch and I think we are a very good match,\u201d adds Spitz. \u201cWe have both been professional riders for a long time and I’m sure we can work great together.\u201d<\/p>\n
De Groot says: \u201cI have to thank my management team from Lange Sports, who run Team Ascendis Health. Malcolm really went out of his way to source and secure a world class partner for this year\u2019s Epic. I couldn\u2019t have wished for better.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know Sabine all that well: we are in touch and slowly getting to know one another as time goes by. Based on my interactions with her last year at the 2016 Epic and so far to date, she has a wonderful personality and I have a feeling we will get along really well. I like the outlook she has on life and racing as well as the energy she carries,\u201d says De Groot.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the bike Sabine brings so much experience with her. She is an incredible technical rider and a well-rounded cyclist \u2026 I think her palmar\u00e9s (the list of races a rider has won) speaks for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about her impressions of the Cape Epic, Spitz said: \u201cIf you do a race like the Epic for the first time, you can’t ride like in a cross country race. I always tried not to go over the limit, so maybe that was the secret. I really enjoyed competing in the Epic, not only because of the routes but also because it was well organised.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s good to have Robyn – a local – as my teammate. I’m sure she can help me with information about the stages,\u201d says Spitz. \u201cI had a look at the route, and it seems to be harder then last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Cape Epic is a total different challenge compared to European Stage Races. The percentage of technical riding is very high,\u201d Spitz says. \u201cIn Europe it\u2019s the opposite: we have a lot of tarmac, forest and dirt roads \u2026 sometimes boring mountain biking. So I’m sure there will be a lot of very challenging parts on the Cape Epic route in 2017.\u201d<\/p>\n
In April last year the German ruptured a cruciate ligament but she seems to be well over that now: \u201cSo far everything is okay and I’m fully into my training schedule. My knee is so far okay \u2026 I did the whole season last year and it worked well and it is also no problem at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
De Groot says her training is going according to schedule: \u201cFortunately summer has allowed me the opportunity to start my preparation well. I\u2019ve been enjoying the process and I guess that is what it is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 2016 South Africa\u2019s Robyn de Groot, riding with Swede Jennie Stenerhag, started the Absa Cape Epic like a house on fire, winning the Prologue and Stage 1. Photo credit: Nick Muzik | Sportzpics Sadly, Stenerhag fell ill on Stage 3 and had to pull out of the event. Later in the event German mountain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":37798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[76,24,361,768],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-17128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-absa-cape-epic","tag-cape-epic","tag-robyn-de-groot","tag-sabine-spitz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17128","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=17128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17128"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=17128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a> Photo credit: Nick Muzik | Sportzpics<\/span><\/p>\n