![\"ccs-62657-0-84021100-1434368455.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-62657-0-84021100-1434368455.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>William Mokgopo 2015 Gauteng XCO Champs. \/\/ Photo credit: Sinead Wannenburg,<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\u201cAfter getting a flat only 200m from the start line and knowing I couldn\u2019t go back to the tech zone just behind me, it became a mental game and I had to push as hard as I could for the first lap before I could fix it,\u201d Mokgopo explains.<\/p>\n
“Going into the race, my legs were a bit tired with the change of training and less sleep due to exams, but I was looking forward to testing myself out.”<\/p>\n
A BSC Sports Science student at the University of Pretoria, Mokgopo recently started training with their High Performance Centre.<\/p>\n
“We have been focusing more on my power output, to give my skinny legs a bit of an edge,\u201d he laughs. \u201cTraining has been challenging the past few weeks, with my eyes set on the last National Cup and National Champs.\u201d<\/p>\n
It has been a packed schedule for the Kargo Pro MTB Team rider in the last two months. In early May he travelled to Rwanda with Team South Africa for the UCI African Continental MTB Championships, where he finished 9th overall.<\/p>\n
Mokgopo has also been improving in the marathon discipline. He placed 3rd Senior Men and 6th overall for the 70km race at the first Nissan Trailseeker event in Gauteng. The very next weekend he took on the mammoth Ultra Marathon (111km) of the SA National MTB Marathon Championships at Van Gaalen in Hartebeespoort, and finished 22nd overall and 16th Senior Men.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy legs left the party at the 60km mark, but luckily they came back towards the end\u201d he jokes. \u201cIt was the hardest race I\u2019ve done so far this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Up next, Mokgopo is looking forward to the 4th instalment of the SA National XCO Cup Series, taking place at Cascades MTB Park in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, on 27th June 2015. He placed 12th Elite Men at the last race at Mankele Bike Park in Nelspruit, GP, and is working for a top 10 finish this time around.<\/p>\n
Thereafter, he\u2019ll be travelling to Stellenbosch, to take part in the University Sport South Africa (USSA) National Cycling Tournament- competing in both MTB and Road cycling for the University of Pretoria.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year I only did the MTB race, so this year will be my first time doing the Tour as well. It will be my first official road race so I\u2019m really excited about the challenge and can\u2019t wait to see how it will unfold.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pinnacle of his local racing season will be the SA National MTB XCO Championships, taking place in the Western Cape in July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
William Mokgopo claimed the coveted title of Gauteng XCO Champ in what the commentator aptly referred to as a \u201ccommanding performance\u201d at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria on Saturday, 13 June 2015. Mokgopo fought back from last place at the start due to a puncture to take top honours in the Elite Men\u2019s race. William […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":47580,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3901,403],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-19819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-gauteng-xco-champs","tag-william-mokgopo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19819","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=19819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19819"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=19819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}