{"id":18507,"date":"2016-03-17T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2016\/03\/17\/unbelievable-stage-victory-for-trek-selle-san-marco-r4383\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T08:32:18","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T08:32:18","slug":"unbelievable-stage-victory-for-trek-selle-san-marco-r4383","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/unbelievable-stage-victory-for-trek-selle-san-marco-r4383\/","title":{"rendered":"Unbelievable stage victory for Trek-Selle San Marco"},"content":{"rendered":"

Samuele Porro and Damiano Ferraro punched the air as they approached the finish line of Thursday\u2019s fourth stage of the Absa Cape Epic. Just before the line, the pair who are riding for Trek-Selle San Marco, got off their bikes and carried them over the line in triumph, celebrating their first stage win of their debut Cape Epic.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-93053500-1458216960.jpg\"<\/a>Samuele Porro and Damiano Ferraro of Trek-Selle San Marco A celebrate winning stage 4 during stage 4 of the 2016 Absa Cape Epic Mountain Bike stage race from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Wellington, South Africa on the 17th March 2016. Photo by Shaun Roy\/Cape Epic\/SPORTZPICS<\/span><\/p>\n

The Italian stallions, the dark horses of this year\u2019s race, are now third overall behind The Bulls and Centurion Vaude by Meerendal 2. The Bulls, however, have taken firm control of the race \u2013 and now have a 9 minute 44 second lead over their nearest rivals.<\/p>\n

One of the leading challengers, Team Topeak Ergon Racing were forced to withdraw after Kristian Hynek crashed within 5km of the end of Wednesday\u2019s stage, damaging his elbow badly.<\/p>\n

It seems nothing but a run of bad luck can now stop The Bulls \u2013 and Germany\u2019s Karl Platt\u2019s record-equalling fifth title. With three stages left the Bulls will no doubt ride defensively to be in the yellow zebra jersey at the finish at the Meerendal on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Porro said today\u2019s stage, which had lots of climbs, suited the team because they are light. \u201cWe started easy and decided not to push too hard. When we got to the third water point \u2013 25km before the end \u2013 we decided to push harder. We managed to get a gap and we just went. We came to the Epic just to get experience \u2013 and now we are on the podium. It\u2019s unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-02449000-1458217329.jpg\"<\/a>Simon Stiebjahn of Bulls 2 during stage 4 of the 2016 Absa Cape Epic Mountain Bike stage race from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Wellington, South Africa on the 17th March 2016. Photo by Nick Muzik\/Cape Epic\/SPORTZPICS<\/span><\/p>\n

Bulls 2 team, of the German pairing of Simon Stiebjahn and Tim Boehme who are racing in support of Platt and his Swiss teammate Urs Huber \u2013 were second in Thursday\u2019s 75km stage \u2013 1 minute and 11 seconds behind Porro and Ferraro.<\/p>\n

“Today was super fast from the beginning, obviously because everybody knew the singletrack starts soon, \u201c said Stiebjahn. \u201cWe got into a good position when we went into the singletrack and that helped us a lot because there was four teams together most of the day. Sometimes other teams came back, but in the final two climbs we made another break and then it came down to the sprint finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dutch riders Rudi van Houts and Hans Becking (CST Superior) rolled across the line in third place in a time of 3:08.01.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Platt said that everything had gone according to plan on Thursday, but said it was yet another tough stage of the race. \u201cThe Epic is never easy especially today with lots of climbs \u2013 we were going up and down all day, but there was lots of singletrack too.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he was thrilled with the form of their back-up team. \u201cI’m very happy for Simon and Tim finishing on the podium today. They trained with us every day before the Epic and they’re getting stronger and stronger too. Maybe before the end of the week they’ll get a stage win too.”<\/p>\n

Waylon Woolcock and Darren Lill (USN Purefit) extended their lead in the Absa African special jersey category, and were the first South African team home in a time of 3:15.14 \u2013 almost two minutes ahead of their rivals Gawie Combrinck and Nico Bell (NAD Pro MTB).<\/p>\n

“Today was good, but after getting a puncture yesterday we got another one early today. Lucky we were able to plug it quickly and kept the gap on Gawie and Nico,\u201d said Woolcock.<\/p>\n

“We rode steady today. The stage didn’t really suit us, but we were able to extend our advantage in the Absa African special jersey a little bit more. That was the plan today, and to not overextend ourselves… so all in all everything went according to plan.”<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-15973700-1458217548.jpg\"<\/a>The Stage Podium (L to R)2nd Place Simon Stiebjahn and Tim Boehme of Bulls 2, 1st Place Samuele Porro and Damiano Ferraro of Trek-Selle San Marco A and 3rd place Rudi van Houts and Hans Becking of CST Superior during stage 4 of the 2016 Absa Cape Epic Mountain Bike stage race from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Wellington, South Africa on the 17th March 2016. Photo by Shaun Roy\/Cape Epic\/SPORTZPICS<\/span><\/p>\n

Stage Results<\/h2>\n

1. Trek-Selle San Marco A 13-1 Samuele Porro (Italy) 13-2 Damiano Ferraro (Italy) 3:06.49,3
2. Bulls 2 10-1 Simon Stiebjahn (Germany) 10-2 Tim Boehme (Germany) 3:08.00,3 +1.11,0
3. CST Superior 5-1 Rudi van Houts (Netherlands) 5-2 Hans Becking (Netherlands) 3:08.01,2 +1.11,9<\/p>\n

Overall Results<\/h2>\n

1. Bulls 3-1 Karl Platt (Germany) 3-2 Urs Huber (Switzerland) 17:30.41,2
2. Centurion Vaude by Meerendal 2 17-1 Nicola Rohrbach (Switzerland) 17-2 Matthias Pfrommer (Germany) 17:40.25,7 +9.44,5
3. Trek-Selle San Marco A 13-1 Samuele Porro (Italy) 13-2 Damiano Ferraro (Italy) 17:46.45,2 +16.04,0
4. Cannondale Factory Racing 14-1 Manuel Fumic (Germany) 14-2 Henrique Avancini (Brazil) 17:56.44,2 +26.03,0
5. Bulls 2 10-1 Simon Stiebjahn (Germany) 10-2 Tim Boehme (Germany) 18:05.47,7 +35.06,5
6. USN Purefit 7-1 Darren Lill (South Africa) 7-2 Waylon Woolcock (South Africa) 18:05.49,0 +35.07,8
7. Dolomiti Superbike 11-1 Periklis Ilias (Greece) 11-2 Tiago Jorge Ferreira Oliveira (Portugal) 18:08.07,5 +37.26,3
8. Trek-Selle San Marco B 18-1 Ivan Alvarez Gutierrez (Spain) 18-2 Fabian Rabensteiner (Italy) 18:09.44,4 +39.03,2
9. NAD Pro MTB 8-1 Gawie Combrinck (South Africa) 8-2 Nico Bell (South Africa) 18:22.20,1 +51.38,9
10. Centurion Vaude by Meerendal 4-1 Daniel Geismayr (Austria) 4-2 Hermann Pernsteiner (Austria) 18:29.22,4 +58.41,2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Samuele Porro and Damiano Ferraro punched the air as they approached the finish line of Thursday\u2019s fourth stage of the Absa Cape Epic. Just before the line, the pair who are riding for Trek-Selle San Marco, got off their bikes and carried them over the line in triumph, celebrating their first stage win of their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43831,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[76,24,1593,1867],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-18507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-absa-cape-epic","tag-cape-epic","tag-damiano-ferraro","tag-samuele-porro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18507","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=18507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18507"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=18507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}