Hoffman bags Durban treble

The 29-year-old from Franschhoek in the Western Cape won the popular 106km cycle race from Pietermaritzburg to Durban in a time of two hours, 25 minutes and 16 seconds (2:25.16).

The Team Abantu rider edged out Meron Teshome of MTN-Qhubeka and Ryan Gibbons from Team Europecar SA.

Hoffman also won South Africa’s oldest race of its kind last year, as well as in 2011.

“I am happy to have pulled off the win again and it shows that doing our homework worked in our favour,” Hoffman said.

“We also kept our cool along the route and it came down to the last 500 metres where we had to act fast and of course my instinct kicked to use all I had to sprint to the finish.”

Meanwhile, the women’s race was won by 18 year-old Kim le Court, who stormed to her maiden title in a time of 2:58.00.

“I found this race very challenging and am very grateful to my team for providing me the assistance on the route,” Le Court said.

The Mauritian-born came in ahead of VeloLife SA teammate Lise Olivier in second and Juanita Venter of Team Bestmed in third. – Sapa