MTB-News: After yesterday's prologue over 26 kilometers, today's "real" opening stage was the first tough test for the field of participants in this year's ABSA CAPE EPIC. After 108 kilometers and 2300 meters in altitude, familiar faces were on top of the podium for both men and women. Team Bulls with Karl Platt and Urs Huber drove away from the competition by more than three minutes in places, while the South African-Swedish duo from Team Ascendis Health confirmed victory in the prologue for the women.
Team Bulls' Karl Platt and Urs Huber remain the two men to beat after the first stage of the multi-day classic. Karl Platt, who also celebrated his 38th birthday today, dominated the rest of the field together with his team-mate from Switzerland. Just the team Dolomites Superbikes with the Greek Perikles Ilias and the Portuguese Tiago Jorge Ferreira Oliveira decided to keep up the high pace of the two. However, the two eventually had to pay tribute to that decision and the team's Alban Lakata and Kristian Hynek Topeak Ergon, who had initially decided to let Platt and Huber go and thus save their strength for the final chord, conceded the second place on the podium.
In the women's race, South African Robyn de Groot and her Swedish teammate Jennie Stenerhag once again managed to win for their team Ascendis Health pick up. After a good two-thirds of the distance, the two were still four minutes behind last year's winners Annika Langvad and Ariane Kleinhans from the team Track Specialized lay, their strategy turned out to be optimal. They managed to convert the considerable deficit in the last third of the stage into a lead of almost 40 seconds. Velomotion blogger Adel Morath from the team Topeak Ergon was able to secure third place together with Briton Sally Bigham and finished 5:50 minutes behind the winning duo. Sabine Spitz, who was able to finish the first "real" stage of her ABSA CAPE EPIC premiere in fourth place, can also be satisfied. Spitz and Ukrainian Yana Belomoina from the team Sports for Good were missing a good 12 minutes on the top duo de Groot / Stenerhag.
On tomorrow's second stage, which again leads around Saronsberg, 2200 vertical meters spread over 93 kilometers await the field of participants, which must be covered within 9:30 hours.
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