{"id":17852,"date":"2016-07-20T14:25:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-20T13:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2016\/07\/20\/eston-mtb-key-part-of-hatherly39s-road-to-rio-r5234\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T07:54:19","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T07:54:19","slug":"eston-mtb-key-part-of-hatherly39s-road-to-rio-r5234","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/eston-mtb-key-part-of-hatherly39s-road-to-rio-r5234\/","title":{"rendered":"Eston MTB key part of Hatherly’s Road to Rio"},"content":{"rendered":"

Under-23 mountain biking sensation Alan Hatherly has confirmed he will include the popular 60km Illovo Eston Marathon \u2013 the feature race of Sunday 7 August\u2019s Illovo Eston MTB Challenge \u2013 in his final preparations for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.<\/p>\n

The Olympic debutant was recently named as one of the two Team South Africa\u2019s male mountain bikers to do battle at the South American showpiece next month and with few races between now and his departure on 13 August, the Kargo Pro Cycling Team rider is looking forward to the race training opportunity this year\u2019s Illovo Eston Marathon presents.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-2-0-73218400-1469024828.jpg\"<\/a>Kargo Pro Cycling Team’s Alan Hatherly will use the 60km Illovo Eston Marathon, the feature race of the 2016 Illovo Eston MTB Challenge which takes place on Sunday 7 August, as one final race opportunity before he heads to Rio den Janeiro for the 2016 Olympic Games.
Photo: Anthony Grote\/Gameplan Media<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are just under five weeks between now and race day in Rio and there aren\u2019t many races on the calendar that I can use to keep the sharpness in the legs and stay race-ready, so the Eston is a great race for me to test the legs one last time before I leave and make sure everything is as it needs to be ahead of the Olympics,\u201d explains Hatherly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Eston\u2019s 60km marathon course is a little longer than the cross country distance we\u2019ll be racing at the Olympics but with the King of the Mountain hotspot just a few kilometers in, the pace off the line at Eston is usually really fast and then it blows up and doesn\u2019t ever seem to slow down from there.<\/p>\n

\u201cEston\u2019s route also includes some great single track, which will give me a chance to stay on top of the technical side of things too, so it will be a good final hit-out,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

The Illovo Eston MTB Challenge \u2013 which also includes the 40km aQuell\u00e9 Half Marathon, 18km STIHL Tala Family Ride and 10km Omnia Kids Ride \u2013 is a familiar event for Hatherly however the 20 year-old has surprisingly failed to impress at in the past.<\/p>\n

With the added importance of this year\u2019s race, the young Hillcrest-based athlete is however eager to right the record books by putting in a strong showing in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully this is my year at Eston!\u201d confirms Hatherly. \u201cI\u2019ve always made a few mistakes or hit the wall there in previous years but it\u2019s a race I really enjoy so it\u2019s one I\u2019d really like to win, especially this year with Rio just around the corner.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully there will be another strong field and it becomes a great contest and a real sufferfest at the front of the race.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe 2016 Illovo Eston MTB Challenge takes place on Sunday, 7 August. Entries can be submitted via www.roag.co.za<\/a> and more information can be found at www.illovoestonmtb.co.za<\/a>.\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Under-23 mountain biking sensation Alan Hatherly has confirmed he will include the popular 60km Illovo Eston Marathon \u2013 the feature race of Sunday 7 August\u2019s Illovo Eston MTB Challenge \u2013 in his final preparations for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Olympic debutant was recently named as one of the two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":41320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[134,2482,2330,2483,1428],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-17852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-alan-hatherly","tag-eston-mtb","tag-kargo-pro","tag-olympic-games","tag-rio-olympics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17852","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=17852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17852"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=17852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}