{"id":17857,"date":"2016-07-19T19:55:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-19T18:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2016\/07\/19\/strong-field-gathered-for-national-mtb-series-in-ballito-r5230\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T07:54:26","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T07:54:26","slug":"strong-field-gathered-for-national-mtb-series-in-ballito-r5230","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/strong-field-gathered-for-national-mtb-series-in-ballito-r5230\/","title":{"rendered":"Strong Field Gathered For National MTB Series in Ballito"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The north coast of KwaZulu-Natal will be the next battleground for South Africa\u2019s top marathon mountain bike racers when they tackle Round 5 of the Ashburton Investments National Marathon Series at Holla Trails, Ballito on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Nico Bell, the current leader of the series, will be on the start line, alongside his Team NAD teammate, Gawie Combrinck, currently lying second in the country\u2019s most prestigious mountain bike racing series.<\/p>\n<p>The Mpumalanga pair will face a formidable opposition though. Max Knox (Lowveld Tractors\/Dirk Louwrens Cycles), the 2015 Series champion, current South African champion and winner of the last two rounds at Clarens and Van Gaalen, is on the start list and will be out to secure a rare series hat-trick in order to rack up more points in his quest to defend the series crown.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image\" href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-2-0-82183000-1468958170.jpg\" data-fileid=\"765484\" data-fileext=\"jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-fileid=\"765484\" class=\"ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed\" alt=\"ccs-2-0-82183000-1468958170.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-2-0-82183000-1468958170.jpg\" title=\"\"><\/a><span class=\"italic text-sm text-slate-500 block mt-1 mb-4\">Photo Credit: www.zcmc.co.za<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Add to that the USN Purefit pair of Waylon Woolcock, currently third in the Series, and Darren Lill, who is still returning to form following a bout of illness; the SCOTT LCB Factory Racing pair of Philip Buys and Gert Heyns; Team Telkom\u2019s HB Kruger, PSG\u2019s Lourens Luus and Red-E Cannondale\u2019s Matt Beers and you have a high quality field.<\/p>\n<p>Bell\u2019s form is good. He finished second overall at last week\u2019s Jock Cycle Tour three-day road stage race and convincingly won the Nissan Trailseeker Hazeldean marathon the previous weekend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve done all the Ashburton Investments Series races so far this year, finishing in the top five in each one. That\u2019s helped me score enough points to lead the series and I\u2019m aiming to maintain that consistency. My form feels good and I\u2019m hoping for a good result in Ballito on Saturday,\u201d said a motivated Bell.<\/p>\n<p>Last year\u2019s women\u2019s winner, Swiss marathon champion, Ariane Kleinhans (Team Spur) won\u2019t be in the country this weekend, while South African champion, Robyn de Groot (Ascendis Health), last year\u2019s runner-up, is still recovering from an injury. Also absent this weekend is Amy Beth McDougall, the current series leader, as she is competing abroad.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image\" href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-2-0-17048800-1468958172.jpg\" data-fileid=\"765485\" data-fileext=\"jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-fileid=\"765485\" class=\"ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed\" alt=\"ccs-2-0-17048800-1468958172.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-2-0-17048800-1468958172.jpg\" title=\"\"><\/a><span class=\"italic text-sm text-slate-500 block mt-1 mb-4\">Photo Credit: www.zcmc.co.za<\/span><\/p>\n<p>That opens the women\u2019s race up somewhat, with Candice Neethling (Team Dormakaba), Samantha Sanders (Valencia) and Theresa Ralph (Galileo Risk), the favourites to battle for the title.<\/p>\n<p>Neethling won the last Ashburton Investments Series event at Van Gaalen and will be looking for similar success in her former home province, while Sanders is currently in good form, confirmed by her second place at the Knynsa Oyster Festival Marathon and dominant win at the Nissan Trailseeker Hazeldean Marathon.<\/p>\n<p>As usual, there are four different distance events, catering for all levels of mountain biker \u2013 the 102km Ultra-marathon, the 78km marathon, the 42km half marathon and the 18km fun race.<\/p>\n<div class=\"bg-slate-100 p-5\">\nEntries are still open and can be done online at <a href=\"http:\/\/insidelinepr.us11.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=7f89f4f389399702f7f1790cd&amp;id=feab60cc09&amp;e=31f4fc880a\" rel=\"external nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">www.nationalmtbseries.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ashburton Investments Series<\/strong><br \/><strong>Round 5, Sugar Rush, Ballito:<\/strong><br \/><strong>Saturday 23 July 2016:<\/strong><br \/>06h00-09h30: Registration and late entries<br \/>07h45: Riders briefing, leader jerseys handover<br \/>08h00: Start Ultra-marathon Pro\/Elite &amp; Amateur<br \/>08h05: Start Marathon Ladies A Batch<br \/>08h10: Start Marathon A Batch<br \/>08h15: Start Half-marathon A Batch<br \/>08h20: Start Half-marathon Ladies A Batch<br \/>08h25: Start Half-marathon all<br \/>08h45: Start Fun Race A Batch + 5min intervals other batches<br \/>09h30: Start Fun Ride all<br \/>13h00: Prize Giving<\/p>\n<p>For more information, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/insidelinepr.us11.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=7f89f4f389399702f7f1790cd&amp;id=030a92406a&amp;e=31f4fc880a\" rel=\"external nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">www.nationalmtbseries.com<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The north coast of KwaZulu-Natal will be the next battleground for South Africa\u2019s top marathon mountain bike racers when they tackle Round 5 of the Ashburton Investments National Marathon Series at Holla Trails, Ballito on Saturday. Nico Bell, the current leader of the series, will be on the start line, alongside his Team NAD teammate, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":41328,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[904],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-17857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-national-mtb-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17857","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=17857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17857"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=17857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}