Telkom Satellite challenge

The event was held at the Hartebeeshoek Satellite Station, just outside Johannesburg. It’s a popular event amongst cyclist with a vast number of participants.

Even as the woman’s group started the 107km race, a string of cars were still waiting on the road to get into the parking area. Come to think of it, getting up so early to start amongst the first groups is actually not that bad….

The woman’s field was very strong, with all the major teams coming out to do this event. Also with the continental games coming up in 2 weeks time, we even had international riders in our group, a Mauritian, Namibian and a Zimbabwean.

The race was made hard from the start with all the teams consistently launching attacks in an attempt to get their riders down the road.

As the bunch came up to the hot spot sprint, Roben de Groot (Nashua) and Ashleigh Moolman (Cycle lab) were the two girls challenging each other to the line. As they crossed the hot spot line they managed to open a small gap on the rest of the field. On realizing this, they put their heads down in an effort to extend their time gap. Marissa van der Merwe (MTN) quickly responded and bridged across to the break.

This break, that at first appeared to be a hot spot sprint, now suddenly turned out to be very dangerous to the rest of us who didn’t have a team mate present in the break.

Only 4 girls (Jenny Stennerhag, Lise Olivier, Arien Torsius and I) worked hard up front trying to bring the break back.

As we closed the gap on the 3 girls that were in front, Cashandra Slingerland (Team MTN) launched a counter attack. I immediately follower her with Arien Torsius (Dilila), Lizanne Naude (Cycle lab) and An-Li Pretorius (Nashua) behind me.
This formed the final break of the day as we headed towards the most challenging part of the day- Hekpoort climb.

The road leading towards Hekpoort is quite hilly and a headwind made it extra hard.
At the bottom of Hekpoort it was only Lizanne Naude (Cycle lab) and myself (Konica Minolta) left of the break away group, with the main bunch breathing down our necks.

On the climb I focussed on a good rhythm and tempo as I made my way to the top of Hekpoort. As we crested the hill, Anriette Schoeman (Nashua) and Ashleigh Moolman (Cycle lab) rode clear from the main bunch, and crossed to Lizanne and me.

With 10 km left to the finish, the 4 of us worked together as best as riders from different teams could!!!
Ashleigh and Lizanne (both Cycle Lab) tried to tire Anriette and myself by taking turns to attack us. This lead to Lizanne getting dropped in the penultimate climb to the finish. Now everything was to be decided through that final 90 degree turn before the finish.

It was Ashleigh who dived into the corner first, taking the victory with me and Anriette finishing in 2nd and 3rd place respectively.

It is a nice event, one I’ve always enjoyed with the challenging Hekpoort climb thrown in right at end to make this event truly demanding…..





Results

1st Ashleigh Moolman (Cycle Lab)
2nd Yolandi du Toit (Konica Minolta)
3rd Anriette Schoeman (Nashua)
4th Lizanne Naude (Cycle Lab)
5th Lynette Burger (Cycle Lab)