It was a clean sweep for MTN-Qhubeka on the opening stage of the Bestmed Tour de Boland, presented by ASG, near Stellenbosch on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Australian Nicholas Dougall clocked the fastest time in the 14km individual time trial, which saw riders battle headwinds all the way from the All\u00e9e Bleue wine estate up the Helshoogte pass to the hilltop finish at African Valley Estate.<\/p>\n
He crossed the line in 20 minutes 17.3 seconds, a full 50 seconds clear of team-mate JC Nel, who recorded 21 minutes 7.1 seconds. Till Drobisch rounded out the podium for the Potchefstroom-based squad in 21 minutes 45.5 seconds.<\/p>\n
Dougall said riding the course earlier in the day had been critical to his team\u2019s success and allowed him to gauge his pace correctly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a very tough course. With the two climbs being at the end, you didn\u2019t want to go out too hard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI paced it fairly well and when I got to the bottom of the first climb I was feeling good and started picking it up towards the end from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he caught his one-minute man on the flat section halfway through the stage, and passed a second rider on the first climb.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got halfway up that climb I was feeling good but it\u2019s very difficult to judge and you never really know until you see the results at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 20-year-old said the win had come as a surprise to him, following a poor showing at the national road championships last weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy form hasn\u2019t been that great but I thought I\u2019d just go out there today, give it 100% and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said MTN-Qhubeka\u2019s dominant showing would make the outfit a major contender for Wednesday\u2019s 38km team time-trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team is very strong at the moment and we now essentially have three cards to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dougall said Thursday\u2019s 140km road race would be the decisive stage. \u201cWe can now afford to race aggressively, not just sit back and wait.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the presence of world-class sprinters like Tasol-GT\u2019s Nolan Hoffman would certainly influence their strategy. \u201cWe certainly don\u2019t want to take them to the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Brisbane native said he hoped to help seal the overall victory for his team in the criterium on the fourth and final stage. \u201cThere are a lot of criteriums on the Australian circuit, so I\u2019m used to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dougall said a strong showing in the tour would boost their confidence ahead of the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour in Cape Town on Sunday.<\/p>\n
For race updates, go to Facebook or follow @TourdeBoland. Visit www.bolandcycling.co.za for more information.<\/p>\n
MTN-Qhubeka\u2019s Nicholas Dougall from Brisbane in Australia took the yellow jersey with a fine time-trial victory in the first stage of the Bestmed Tour de Boland just outside Stellenbosch on Tuesday. Photo: Coetzee Gouws\/Fullstop<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a clean sweep for MTN-Qhubeka on the opening stage of the Bestmed Tour de Boland, presented by ASG, near Stellenbosch on Tuesday. Australian Nicholas Dougall clocked the fastest time in the 14km individual time trial, which saw riders battle headwinds all the way from the All\u00e9e Bleue wine estate up the Helshoogte pass […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-22005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22005","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=22005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22005\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22005"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=22005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}