{"id":18547,"date":"2016-03-14T14:05:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T14:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2016\/03\/14\/dramatic-finish-in-womens-race-r4341\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T08:34:00","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T08:34:00","slug":"dramatic-finish-in-womens-race-r4341","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/dramatic-finish-in-womens-race-r4341\/","title":{"rendered":"Dramatic finish in Women\u2019s race"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Robyn de Groot and Jennie Stenerhag of Team Ascendis Health crossed the finish line first in a time of 5:22.18,4 on Stage 1 of the Absa Cape Epic, the most surprised people at Saronsberg Wine Estate were the two of them.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-90745000-1457963526.jpg\"<\/a>Robyn de Groot [L] and Jennie Stenerhag [R] Win stage 1 of the 2016 Absa Cape Epic Mountain Bike stage race held from Saronsberg Wine Estate in Tulbagh, South Africa on the 14th March 2016. Photo by Sam Clark\/Cape Epic\/SPORTZPICS<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw the helicopter, then we saw Ariane [Kleinhans] and thought maybe we can go for a stage win,\u201d said De Groot of their passing manoeuvre on the Spur-Specialised pair of Ariane Kleinhans and Annika Langvad.<\/p>\n

Up until that dramatic moment, in the final 2km of Monday\u2019s 108km stage, the South African-Swedish pair of De Groot and Stenerhag feared for their Sasol Women\u2019s category leader\u2019s jersey.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought we had lost it,\u201d said De Groot. \u201cWe didn\u2019t expect to catch up to them after we all split.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stage 1 was the first time in Absa Cape Epic history where the UCI-registered women\u2019s teams started in their own batch, taking off five minutes after the UCI men on Monday morning. De Groot believes that it added an interesting element to the racing among the women.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very nice and gave us all a fair chance to leverage off the start. Once we were caught by the men who started behind us we then rode tempo,\u201d said De Groot, the reigning South African Marathon champion.<\/p>\n

Langvad and Kleinhans came home in second place, losing 39.9 seconds on the day, and the pain was etched on the Swiss rider\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was actually a very good day,\u201d recalled Langvad, speaking for the pair while Kleinhans struggled through the day\u2019s exertions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got away on the first climb when the Grand Masters caught up with us. Up until that stage it was actually very slow. When the men caught us I think they expected us to do the work but it didn\u2019t really happen. We knew today would be interesting with the new start and nobody had an idea how it would go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-21087800-1457963633.jpg\"<\/a>Ariane Kleinhans [R] and Annika Langvad [L] during stage 1 of the 2016 Absa Cape Epic Mountain Bike stage race held from Saronsberg Wine Estate in Tulbagh, South Africa on the 14th March 2016. Photo by Sam Clark\/Cape Epic\/SPORTZPICS.<\/span><\/p>\n

Langvad, provided insight to where the the tide turned for her and her teammate \u2013 their lead at one stage had grown to over four minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a little bit of a shame. Suddenly, in the last 20km Ariane started struggling and her pace dropped. She said she was quite tired.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite now being 58 seconds behind overall, Langvad remained positive of Kleinhans recovering sufficiently for Stage 2 and beyond\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously we feel the pressure of being caught today, especially because we rode a very strong race up until that point, but there is a long race ahead\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The podium today was rounded off by Sally Bigham and Adel Morath of Topeak Ergon, who arrived home 5:50.4 behind the stage winners.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very dusty today but there was nice singletrack. We knew it was going to be hot today so we weren\u2019t surprised by that,\u201d said Bigham of today\u2019s conditions.<\/p>\n

The Brit called the new women\u2019s batch \u201cbetter, for sure\u201d adding that the racing became a little different when the Grand Masters caught up with the UCI Women.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they came past, the women\u2019s race opened up and from then on we were by ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s Stage 2, 93km out and back at Saronsberg, is the 100th of the Absa Cape Epic. Will the leader\u2019s make it three-from-three or will the prestige of the stage see another team take it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Robyn de Groot and Jennie Stenerhag of Team Ascendis Health crossed the finish line first in a time of 5:22.18,4 on Stage 1 of the Absa Cape Epic, the most surprised people at Saronsberg Wine Estate were the two of them. Robyn de Groot [L] and Jennie Stenerhag [R] Win stage 1 of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43950,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[76,24,314,361,894],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-18547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-absa-cape-epic","tag-cape-epic","tag-jennie-stenerhag","tag-robyn-de-groot","tag-team-ascendis-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18547","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=18547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18547"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=18547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}