{"id":22109,"date":"2012-12-11T06:10:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T06:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2012\/12\/11\/bell-combrinck-named-winners-of-2012-bridge-cape-pioneer-trek-r390\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T12:34:35","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T12:34:35","slug":"bell-combrinck-named-winners-of-2012-bridge-cape-pioneer-trek-r390","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/bell-combrinck-named-winners-of-2012-bridge-cape-pioneer-trek-r390\/","title":{"rendered":"Bell, Combrinck named winners of 2012 Bridge Cape Pioneer Trek"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following the disqualification of the Nedbank 360Life team of Kevin Evans and David George as a result of George\u2019s positive doping test, Nico Bell and Gawie Combrinck (Westvaal Columbia) have been officially instated as the winners of the 2012 Bridge Cape Pioneer Trek international mountain bike stage race.<\/p>\n

\"pioneer1.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Nico Bell (left) and Gawie Combrinck of Team Westvaal Columbia celebrate after a stage win at the 2012 Bridge Cape Pioneer Trek. They have been instated as the official winners of the event.<\/em><\/p>\n

During the fourth edition of the seven-day race in South Africa\u2019s Western Cape province between 14 and 20 October, George and Evans successfully defended their overall title and claimed four stage wins in the process. One of their stage wins was the much talked about Stage 2 which offered R100 000 to the winning team, the biggest single stage purse in world mountain bike racing.<\/p>\n

It was announced on 6 November by Cycling South Africa that George had returned a positive test for EPO, the banned blood booster and that all his results dating back to 29 August 2012 would be erased and all prizemoney would need to be returned. George and Evans won a total of R125 000 (US$15 625) at the 2012 Cape Pioneer Trek.<\/p>\n

With Evans and George removed from the race results, Bell and Combrinck move up to become the 2012 winners. This leads to the promotion of Melt Swanepoel and Matthys Beukes (CangoMTB.com) to second overall and Chris Wolhuter and Oliver Munnik (Asrin Cycling) to third overall.<\/p>\n

Stage results have all been adjusted accordingly and initial runners-up, Beukes and Swanepoel, will have a pre-Christmas bonus with the payment of the R100 000 prize for the first team to the summit of the Swartberg Pass on the iconic Stage 2.<\/p>\n

\"pioneer2.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Nico Bell (left) and Gawie Combrinck of Team Westvaal Columbia celebrate taking the win on Stage 4 of the 2012 Bridge Cape Pioneer Trek. They have been named as the official winners of Stages 1, 4, 5 and 6 as well as the overall winners.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great shame that we have to undertake this retrospective adjustment process. But a rider cheated and that\u2019s against the rules of the sport and our event. In the long run, this kind of action will hopefully help minimise the temptation to cheat,\u201d said Henco Rademeyer of Dryland Events, the organisers of the Bridge Cape Pioneer Trek.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s sad that we can\u2019t recreate the fanfare and energy and environment for the rightful winners of the race and the stages, but we feel it\u2019s important to let the media know and do the best we can from our side to ensure they are given the credit they are due. We\u2019d like to offer a big congratulations to Nico and Gawie for their hard-fought overall win and also Melt and Matthys for their courageous effort up the Swartberg Pass on Stage 2,\u201d added Rademeyer.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it\u2019s nowhere near the same as winning at the actual event itself. Winning by default is the hollowest type of victory there is. But we put in the effort each day and raced as best we could, so some recognition is better than none. It\u2019s just unfortunate that our sponsors won\u2019t get the exposure they could have got and that the organisers had to manage an incident that has such a big impact on their event.\u201d said Nico Bell of the Westvaal Columbia team.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously we are happy to see that a rider that cheats gets caught and penalised and we are grateful for the additional prizemoney that we\u2019ll get, but to me, the only thing that really changes are our CVs,\u201d added Bell.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvans and George have repaid their winnings and we are awaiting an official statement from the SA Institute for Drug-free Sport confirming that there are no outstanding results on tests done on all our podium finishers before paying over their prizemoney. It\u2019s unfortunate that it\u2019s come to this and in future we\u2019ll have to look at adjusting our prizemoney payment procedure in conjunction with the anti-doping process,\u201d said Rademeyer.<\/p>\n

\"pioneer3.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Matthys Beukes (left) and Melt Swanepoel of Team CangoMTB.com have been named winners of three stages of the 2012 Bridge Cape Pioneer Trek, including the iconic Stage 2 with a R100 000 (US $12 000) prize purse. They were also second overall.<\/em><\/p>\n

Revised results 2012 Bridge Cape Pioneer Trek<\/strong><\/p>\n

Final General Classification<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 Nico Bell \u2013 RSA \/ Gawie Combrinck \u2013 RSA (Westvaal Columbia) 21h21m41s<\/p>\n

2 Matthys Beukes \u2013 RSA \/ Melt Swanepoel \u2013 RSA (Cango MTB.com) 21:51:00<\/p>\n

3 Chris Wolhuter \u2013 RSA \/ Oliver Munnik \u2013 RSA (Asrin Cycling) 22:43:18<\/p>\n

4 Mattijs Eversdijk \u2013 NED \/ Liwald Doornbos \u2013 NED (Cube Nutswerk 2) 23:20:29<\/p>\n

5 Wynand Mulder \u2013 RSA \/ Kobus Barnard \u2013 RSA (Klein Karoo Express) 23:36:38<\/p>\n

Stage 6<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 Nico Bell \u2013 RSA \/ Gawie Combrinck \u2013 RSA (Westvaal Columbia) 03:08:53<\/p>\n

2 Chris Wolhuter \u2013 RSA \/ Oliver Munnik \u2013 RSA (Asrin Cycling) 03:19:29<\/p>\n

3 Wynand Mulder \u2013 RSA \/ Kobus Barnard \u2013 RSA (Klein Karoo Express) 03:27:21<\/p>\n

Stage 5<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 Nico Bell \u2013 RSA \/ Gawie Combrinck \u2013 RSA (Westvaal Columbia) 02:13:22<\/p>\n

2 Matthys Beukes \u2013 RSA \/ Melt Swanepoel \u2013 RSA (Cango MTB.com) 02:24:21<\/p>\n

3 Mattijs Eversdijk \u2013 NED \/ Liwald Doornbos \u2013 NED (Cube Nutswerk 2) 02:26:16<\/p>\n

Stage 4<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 Nico Bell \u2013 RSA \/ Gawie Combrinck \u2013 RSA (Westvaal Columbia) 03:07:07<\/p>\n

2 Matthys Beukes \u2013 RSA \/ Melt Swanepoel \u2013 RSA (Cango MTB.com) 03:19:01<\/p>\n

3 Mattijs Eversdijk \u2013 NED \/ Liwald Doornbos \u2013 NED (Cube Nutswerk 2) 03:31:43<\/p>\n

Stage 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 Matthys Beukes \u2013 RSA \/ Melt Swanepoel \u2013 RSA (Cango MTB.com) 04:06:07<\/p>\n

2 Nico Bell \u2013 RSA \/ Gawie Combrinck \u2013 RSA (Westvaal Columbia) 04:06:41<\/p>\n

3 Mattijs Eversdijk \u2013 NED \/ Liwald Doornbos \u2013 NED (Cube Nutswerk 2) 04:15:59<\/p>\n

Stage 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 Matthys Beukes \u2013 RSA \/ Melt Swanepoel \u2013 RSA (Cango MTB.com) 04:03:07<\/p>\n

2 Nico Bell \u2013 RSA \/ Gawie Combrinck \u2013 RSA (Westvaal Columbia) 04:14:41<\/p>\n

3 Mattijs Eversdijk \u2013 NED \/ Liwald Doornbos \u2013 NED (Cube Nutswerk 2) 04:24:25<\/p>\n

Stage 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 Nico Bell \u2013 RSA \/ Gawie Combrinck \u2013 RSA (Westvaal Columbia) 03:53:33<\/p>\n

2 Matthys Beukes \u2013 RSA \/ Melt Swanepoel \u2013 RSA (Cango MTB.com) 03:54:40<\/p>\n

3 Chris Wolhuter \u2013 RSA \/ Oliver Munnik \u2013 RSA (Asrin Cycling) 04:04:25<\/p>\n

Prologue time trial<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 Matthys Beukes \u2013 RSA \/ Melt Swanepoel \u2013 RSA (Cango MTB.com) 37:32<\/p>\n

2 Louis Knipe \u2013 RSA \/ Craig Boyes \u2013 RSA (Contego 28E) 38:43<\/p>\n

3 Nico Bell \u2013 RSA \/ Gawie Combrinck \u2013 RSA (Westvaal Columbia) 38:54<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following the disqualification of the Nedbank 360Life team of Kevin Evans and David George as a result of George\u2019s positive doping test, Nico Bell and Gawie Combrinck (Westvaal Columbia) have been officially instated as the winners of the 2012 Bridge Cape Pioneer Trek international mountain bike stage race. Nico Bell (left) and Gawie Combrinck of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":53431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-22109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22109","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=22109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22109"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=22109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}