MTB News: It was the queen stage of this year's Cape Epic. In the run-up, the two teams from Scott SRAM with Nino Schurter and Matthias Stirnemann started with a narrow lead over the Specialized duo Christoph Sauser and Jaroslav Kulhavy. Again, Sauser/Stirnemann were hit with bad luck – the luck of the one, the suffering of the other: Schurter and his partner are going into the last stage on Sunday with a big cushion.
It was a brutal day at Cape Epic. The king's stage with more than 2.500 meters in altitude on difficult terrain again required all the drivers' concentration in the final phase of the stage race. Above all, the merciless climb up the Groenlandberg in the first third was seen by many drivers and experts as "tipping the scales" for overall victory. The fact that it actually happened in the end was unfortunately not due to the difficulty of the terrain or the climb, but to the renewed bad luck of the two Specialized riders, Sauser and Stirnemann.
Sauser went flat on this crucial climb and the Scott-SRAM team took the opportunity. “Actually, we wanted to stay with Investec Songo Specialized and see what happens. But of course we took our chance,” said Olympic champion Nino Schurter after the end of the race. With a cushion of more than six minutes, the veteran and his Swiss compatriot shouldn't let anything go wrong in tomorrow's final.
Sabine Spitz was also unlucky again in the women's category. After her fall a few days ago, she and her partner Robyn de Groot had worked their way back into a promising second position in the overall standings. Another fall and subsequent broken handlebars cost the duo almost 35 minutes yesterday and they slipped down to third place in the overall standings, which they then have to secure in tomorrow's finale.
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