Hillcrest Olympian wins Madiba Dash race
A few short days after returning from competing in the Rio Games, Alan Hatherly added another win to his already impressive achievements.
RIO 2016 Olympian and Hillcrest resident, Alan Hatherly, took top honours at the recent 2016 Mandela Day Marathon MTB Dash.
Alan’s conditioning was on top form following his recent race in the Olympic XCO race in Rio and it allowed him to trump the 42km route.
Mandla Mandela, the grandson of South Africa’s late former President, Nelson Mandela, took full opportunity to cycle in honour of his late grandfather. “Today went very well. It was a very touching moment for me to be able to participate in the 21km mountain bike ride. At the same time it was a really challenging course. In his book The Long Walk to Freedom, Madiba said that once you have climbed to the top of the hill, only then do you realise how many more hills and rivers you have to climb and cross. The Capture Site is a direct depiction of that chapter. Once we got to the top of the first hill only then did I realise how many hills we still had left to climb. I have to applaud all of those who came out today to ride in honour of our Madiba.”
Racing in his first MTB Dash, and his first race since returning from the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, Alan said, “I started a hard effort on the final climb of the race and pretty much time trialled from there until the end. The wind was quite hectic and I had to play tactics to try and hide from the wind but really happy to come out on top. On the whole, it was a really awesome race and I will definitely be back here next year.”
Riders were blown away by the magical route that wound its way through the Lions River Valley and the adjoining Sappi Forests with magical vistas of the Midmar Dam area and sections of Howick during the 42km, 21km and 10km routes.
Race winner in the 21-kilometre race was RMB Change-A-Life’s Mboneni Ngcoso, who also made it two victories out of three races. “It went well today – I came here to defend my title from last year. To win today makes me very happy. To ride for Madiba is amazing – it is a very big honour and I am proud to be an African and proud to be racing a big race like this.”
