Cycling / MTB: On the final stage of the Cape Epic 2019, there were no more surprises despite the demanding profile with over 1.800 meters in altitude - the Scott-Sram duo, which dominated almost the entire race distance, took the deserved overall victory ahead of Manuel Fumic and Henrique Avancini from Cannondale Factory. Behind, the Italians of Trek Selle San Marco secured the last remaining podium spot. Only the unloved fourth place remained for the BULLS heroes Simon Stiebjahn and Urs Huber - nevertheless a great performance of the newly formed duo. In the women's, overall victory went to Investec-songo-Specialized's Anna van der Breggen and Annika Langvad, who won six of seven stages and ended up over 30 minutes clear of Summit Fin's Adelheid Morath and her partner Candice Lill.
There were no surprises at the Grand Finale of the Cape Epic 2019: With the duos Nino Schurter / Lars Forster (Scott-Sram) and Annika Langvad / Anna van der Breggen (Investec-songo-Specialized), the two teams in the leader jerseys triumphed in the end went to the final stage. After just a few meters, the men's fight for the prestigious day's victory on the final section of the epic erupted and some teams set a remarkable pace. In particular, it was Pygo EuroSteel (Philip Beuys and Matthys Beukes) and Kross-Spur (Sergio Gutierrez and Ondrej Cink) who set the pace and, with a win, wanted to make the otherwise rather average overall performance a bit forgotten. Since the quartet could no longer be dangerous in the overall standings, the two top teams let the escapees go. Trek Selle San Marco and the BULLS Heroes briefly tried to catch up with the leading group, but didn't want to risk their third or fourth place overall.
In the end it came to an extremely close finish, which Kross-Spur won in the sprint with a tenth of a second advantage over Pygo EuroSteel. Behind them, CST Sandd had fought their way, Trek Selle San Marco remained in fourth place. At the finish, Lars Forster and Nino Schurter were happy about their overall triumph. For Forster in particular, the victory took a lot of pressure off his shoulders; After all, he joined the team at short notice as the new team partner for Olympic champion and exceptional driver Nino Schurter. “I wasn't doing so well the day before yesterday and yesterday, I really had to fight. Luckily I had a partner who still had some power to deliver. I'm so happy that we got the overall win," said the weary Swiss after crossing the finish line.
After a hard fight, the BULLS heroes Simon Stiebjahn and Urs Huber "only" got the thankless fourth place this year. No reason to throw in the towel and “Stiebi” is already looking to 2020 on Instagram – with an announcement to the competition: "I'm happy that Urs and I took the next step. We will certainly come back even stronger in 2020 and aim for the podium!” The other two Bulls teams also made it into the top 20: Alban Lakata and Karl Platt just missed out on the top 12 in 10th place, but the two old masters seemed happy with the result. The very good 20th place for the two BULLS youngsters Martin Frey and Simon Schneller is remarkable, and we will certainly hear more about them in the future.
The women's situation was clear right from the start, which also became clear at the end of the final stage: Once again, the duo from Investec-songo-Specialized was at the top of the podium, followed by Summit Fin and Kross-Spur - these three duos made it also the podium places among themselves. In the end, each team was separated by half an hour. The German duo with Sabine Spitz and Nadine Rieder made fourth place – great performance. Speaking of great performance: In the mixed teams, the German couple Sebastian and Laura Stark were able to win the overall ranking.