Photo credit: Martin Platter\/Elsa Bike Trophy <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI knew I had to be patient and not attack from the start. Even though it\u2019s quite a short race, there are a lot of steep climbs and very tight corners,\u201d said Ariane.<\/p>\n
Recent heavy rains, combined with a thunderstorm on Saturday night, left the course muddy and slippery, conditions that Kleinhans doesn\u2019t experience too often in South Africa. After a nervous start, she crashed on a steep descent after 15km, but then settled into a more steady rhythm as she began to attack the steep climbs.<\/p>\n
\u201cMilena Landtwig (Topeak Ergon) also crashed at the same place as me. I saw her as my biggest rival on the day and the two of us managed to get a gap on the others on the first steep climbs,\u201d recalled Kleinhans.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe rode together and shared the work up front for the first half of the race. Then, about three kilometres from the highest point of the race, I realised I was climbing stronger than her and managed to open up a gap. When I saw that I\u2019d established a lead on her I put my head down and went after the win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kleinhans clocked a winning time of 02 hours 58 minutes 48 seconds. Landtwing secured the silver medal in 03:01:04 with Cornelia Hug rounding out the women\u2019s podium in 03:05:52. Four-time Cape Epic winner and multiple world champion, Christoph Sauser, a good friend and mentor to Ariane, won the men\u2019s title.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to thank my South African employers RE:CM and Lange Sports for putting their faith in me and sending me to Switzerland to race my national champs. The fact that they sent me two weeks before the event helped me prepare properly. The weather was cold and wet when I arrived there and the conditions soft and muddy, almost the opposite to what I\u2019ve become used to in South Africa!\u201d remarked Kleinhans.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is every bicycle racer\u2019s dream to compete for his or her national champion\u2019s jersey. This win is very significant for me,\u201d smiled Ariane, who with husband Erik, has won the Mixed category in the last two editions of the ABSA Cape Epic and the Old Mutual Joburg2c, two of South Africa\u2019s premier stage races.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are incredibly proud of Ariane. This is the first national title for Team RE:CM and the fact that Ariane won it in Switzerland, where there is such racing depth, makes it even more special. She\u2019s a fantastic ambassador for both RE:CM and Lange Sports,\u201d said Malcolm Lange of Lange Sports, the company that owns and manages Team RE:CM.<\/p>\n
For more information on Team RE:CM, visit www.teamrecm.co.za<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South African resident Ariane Kleinhans of Team RE:CM claimed her first national mountain bike racing title when she won the Swiss women\u2019s marathon mountain bike championships on Sunday. Team RE:CM’s Ariane Kleinhans proudly wears the Swiss national champion’s jersey following her victory on Sunday. On the left is Milena Landtwig (second) and on the right […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":53350,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2298,2435,3364],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-21783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-ariane-kleinhans","tag-ladies","tag-team-recm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21783","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21783"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=21783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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