Bradley Potgieter wins aQuellé Tour Durban
Cyclists enjoyed their race through Pinetown.
BRADLEY Potgieter added the aQuellé Tour Durban title to the impressive catalogue of victories by the RoadCover team, as he edged out Telkom Pro Cycling’s Herman Maree on the line on the closing leg back down the M4 coastal freeway to the finish at Moses Mabhida Stadium on Sunday.
In what proved to be an intriguing arm-wrestle between the strong Telkom Pro Cycling outfit and RoadCover in tough windy conditions, the Telkom strategy to contain the race at a steady rolling pace to prevent any breakaways seemed to be working in the first half of the race.
“We let that happen over the climb (to Pinetown) and we made sure we had most of our guys there. When we linked onto the M4 highway to Ballito we made the call to make the racing harder because Telkom were happy to just ride consistently. We got a few of our guys to start attacking and counter attacking until the pressure got to them and the split happened in the bunch. I just slipped into the move,” said Potgieter.
In the women’s race Lise Olivier rounded off a thoroughly dominant showing by the Time Freight eTeam to win a three way sprint for the title.
Their five strong outfit attacked from the get-go and used the push up to Pinetown to whittle the women’s peleton down to six riders, with Olivier winning the Queen of the Mountain hot-spot. From the turn at top of the M4 at uMdloti the concerted attacks and counter-attacks started, which saw Olivier and Juanita Venter break away alone at the front.
“The finish was a proper team effort and we managed to get first and second,” said a satisfied Olivier.
The second hotspot was won by Vera Adrian, who finished second overall to make it a Time Freight eTeam one-two, with Brittany Petersen clinching her first major road race podium scooping third ahead of Juanita Venter.
The 55km cyclocross race which included off road sectors was won by Marco Joubert (Kargo Pro) from Joshua Nelson and talented junior Cayde Muldoon, with Hayley Smith getting the better of Kargo Pro team mate Frankie du Toit in the women’s race.
The three races that make up the aQuellé Tour Durban were supported by huge fields, eager to enjoy the sunny Autumn weather. The 45km Fun Ride attracted a record field as enthusiastic social riders soaked up the out-and-back loop from the Moses Mabhida Stadium to the uMdloti and back.
The Domino Foundation that is the ultimate beneficiary of the race fielded several teams of riders, joined by public supporters and cheered on by the team of volunteers manning their second station.
