Lill and Woolcock seal the Nedbank sani2c deal

DARREN Lill and Waylon Woolcock triumphed at the end of a final stage laced with drama to claim the 2015 Nedbank sani2c title over Johan Rabie and Swiss speedster Konny Looser while the dominant pair of Cherise Stander and Ariane Kleinhans dominated once again to claim an emphatic overall women’s victory at Scottburgh on Saturday.

The 84km final stage was going to prove a challenge for the chasing pairs as they had to make up the time on the leading duo but Lill was quick to point out that the tactics were never to sit and just conserve their 28 second lead, they wanted to make the chasing pairs work to try and make up those precious seconds.

“We had a slender lead coming into today and we went out and attacked positively from the start,” Lill said on the finish line. “We really wanted to put the others on the back foot rather than them putting us on the back foot.”

Four teams broke away at the front with the duo of Kevin Evans, who is heading for retirement after a stellar sani2c career and Max Knox determined to go down battling, until they were sidelined by yet another chain failure. Soon the duo fell back, leaving Lill and Woolcock duelling with Rabie and Looser into the grandstrand finish on Scottburgh’s main beach.

Looser took a wrong turn as they approached the 600m long floating bridge over the lagoon, and, rattled by that mistake, fell into the river, ending the race for stage honours, and leaving the door open for Lill and Wollcock to coast home to claim the title in style.

“We got caught behind a cane truck through one of the cane plantations but we just stuck to our gameplan and weren’t under too much pressure at any time today fortunately and had no technicals or any other issues and we happy to take the stage win at the same time,” he added with a dusty smile.

The ladies race was a one-sided affair going into the final stage and it was going to take major problems to prevent the team of Cherise Stander and Ariane Kleinhans from winning the overall title however they were faultless once again and Stander explained the significance of the win.

“The sani2c has some amazing memories for me and this basically where my mountain biking career started through Burry so it is obviously very special,” she revealed. “The venue, the people and the race are spectacular so it is definitely one of my favourite stage races on the calendar.”

Kleinhans was all smiles when she spoke about the race.

“We had absolutely no issues on our Specialized bikes and it was all perfect for us and riding with Cherise is always amazing and she really knows the course and we are really happy to take all the stages and the overall classification,” Kleinhans mentioned.

For more information visit www.sani2c.co.za