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Sofia Gomez Villafane and Katerina Nash (NinetyOne-Songo-Specialised) gained the prologue for the ladies whereas Matt Beers and Chris Blevins (Toyota-Specialised-NinetyOne) claimed the opening day victory for males on the 2023 Absa Cape Epic.
Every duo pulled on the primary yellow CM.com chief jerseys of the eight-day mountain stage race set in and across the South African hills of Durbanville, Cape City.
The 27km prologue was held on the Meerendal Wine Property on Sunday morning with ladies’s defending champion Villafane and her companion Nash stopping the clock in 1 hour, 18 minutes, 57 seconds. They have been seven seconds sooner than second-placed Environment friendly Infiniti Insure, a group consisting of Namibia’s Vera Looser and Mauritius’s Kim le Court docket. In third, 30 seconds off the very best time, was Amy Wakefield and Candice Lill of e-FORT.net-SeattleCoffeeCo.
“The beginning was fairly savage however as soon as we received going, I used to be actually into it – too into it. I received method too excited after we began passing different groups; Kate needed to inform me to take it straightforward and never burn too many matches,” Villafane admitted.
“It was an excellent enjoyable day. We pushed exhausting to the end and it’s an excellent honour beginning Stage 1 in orange.”
The Wakefield-Lill duo in third had hoped for a greater begin to the week-long occasion, as they misplaced time when Wakefield fell in the direction of the top of the time trial.
Beers, a 2021 Cape Epic winner and 2022 South African gravel champion, partnered for a second time with Blevins, a former mountain bike cross-country quick monitor (XCC) world champion, and so they gained final yr’s prologue. Nevertheless, Beers turned in poor health later within the race and group faltered to complete second general. On Sunday they repeated the flying begin of the earlier version and took management of the boys’s GC with a greatest time of 1:03:01.
“We saved it on the restrict as we speak and tried to not go over that,” stated Beers. Chris is aware of methods to handle me, in all probability higher than I understand how to handle myself. We didn’t go overboard as we speak and as a group, I believe we did an excellent job.”
A number of cross-country World Champion Nino Schurter, who has gained Cape Epic two occasions, rode with Swiss companion Andri Frischknecht on the SCOTT-SRAM MTB Racing group and settled for second place, seven seconds again. 2022 Cape Epic champions Georg Egger and Lukas Baum of Orbea x Leatt X Pace Firm got here in third, 45 seconds off the tempo.
Different notable riders among the many two-rider UCI males’s division this yr embody recently-retired WorldTour professional Vincenzo Nibali with Samuele Porro on Italian Associates group, who’re in ninth place after the prologue, and 2022 Life Time Grand Prix winner Keegan Swenson becoming a member of Lachlan Morton on EF-EasyPost:SCB SRA group, in 14th place.
Stage 1 on March 20 heads southwest to Hermanus and can cowl 98km with 2,550 metres of climbing.
“It’s an extended race, so we’re not taking something as a right. We’ve loads of racing to do within the subsequent week, so we’re going to keep centered and keep resilient,” Blevins famous.
Cape Epic covers a complete of 648 kilometres this yr with 15,465 metres of elevation achieve. Referred to as an “untamed” mountain bike race, it is among the most demanding mountain bike races on this planet.
