Kent Main executed his strategy to perfection to win the opening stage of the three-day Bestmed Jock Tour in Kaapsehoop, Mpumalanga, on 15 September 2017.<\/p>\n
The Dimension Data rider, who is racing without the support of a full team, set out determined to take advantage of the 27km individual time-trial that climbed all the way from Mbombela.<\/p>\n
Main, who was aiming to finish in around 55 minutes, crossed the line in a provisional time of 54:57 to record a relatively comfortable victory over RoadCover’s Brendon Davids, who won the one-day Jock Classic over the same roads earlier this season.<\/p>\n
Davids’ teammate, Mornay van Heerden, completed the podium in 55:45.<\/p>\n
“I think you can say that’s a pretty well-judged effort,” said Main, who showed that he is developing into one of the country’s top tour riders after winning the five-day Tour of Good Hope by one second in March.<\/p>\n
“I’m ecstatic to take the win,” he said, while admitting that he battled through the final 5km after having good rhythm early on.<\/p>\n
Main said he overtook several riders who left the starting chute ahead of him, but had to dig deep as he entered the final stretch.<\/p>\n
“Going into the last five kilometres it really started to hurt and it got even harder in the last three kilometres.<\/p>\n
“When it flattened out a bit in the last one-and-a-half kilometres I just put my head down and grinded through.”<\/p>\n
The 21-year-old pro from Linden in Johannesburg will pull on the yellow jersey for tomorrow’s 140km stage, which features 2 900m of climbing.<\/p>\n
“The main objective now is to win the tour, but I think it’s going to be really hard. I’m going to have to race really smart over the next two stages and not give too much away.<\/p>\n
“Hopefully I won’t lose any time tomorrow, but I don’t think it will be a day where I will gain any time either.”<\/p>\n
Team Garmin’s Yolandi du Toit, who has been focusing on mountain biking in recent years, made a victorious return to the road to finish ahead of Cycle4Cansa winner Carla Oberholzer and Zanri Rossouw.<\/p>\n
The former 947 Cycle Challenge champion stopped the clock on 1:05:57 and credited her mountain biking experience for her impressive ride.<\/p>\n
“In mountain biking all the races are kind of like an individual time-trial so I felt very comfortable with it all because of how similar it was. I just went out and rode like it was a mountain bike stage,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Coming from a road background, it will always have a special place in my heart so I really enjoyed today.”<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old from the neighbouring town of White River said she did not expect the victory and was very pleased with her effort.<\/p>\n
Like Main, she is competing without the support of a team and admitted that she was unsure of what to expect tomorrow.<\/p>\n
“I’m just going to try and follow wheels and see if I can hold on to first place.”<\/p>\n
The Bestmed Jock Tour, which is presented by Rudy Project, finishes on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Provisional results<\/p>\n
Stage 1 – 27km individual time-trial<\/p>\n
Men<\/p>\n
1. Kent Main 54:57
\n2. Brendon Davids 55:17
\n3. Mornay van Heerden 55:45
\n4. Jayde Julius 55:55
\n5. Gregory de Vink 56:31
\n6. James Fourie 56:58
\n7. Myles van Musschenbroek 58:04
\n8. Ben Melt Swanepoel 58:14
\n9. Byron Munton 59:03
\n10. Luthando Kaka 59:06<\/p>\n
Women<\/p>\n
1. Yolandi du Toit 1:05:57
\n2. Carla Oberholzer 1:07:27
\n3. Zanri Rossouw 1:11:58
\n4. Cherise Willeit 1:12:11
\n5. Dalene van der Leek 1:12:22
\n6. Elmari de Wet 1:15:28
\n7. Nadia Visser 1:15:40
\n8. Jodi Zulberg 1:16:20
\n9. Ronet Human 1:16:28
\n10. Heidi Dalton 1:16:48<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kent Main executed his strategy to perfection to win the opening stage of the three-day Bestmed Jock Tour in Kaapsehoop, Mpumalanga, on 15 September 2017. The Dimension Data rider, who is racing without the support of a full team, set out determined to take advantage of the 27km individual time-trial that climbed all the way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1743,1783,2922,1745,1788,2924,2932,2340,2677,2927],"class_list":["post-10746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-asg-events","tag-bestmed","tag-bestmed-jock-tour","tag-cycling","tag-cycling-news","tag-jock-tour","tag-kaapsehoop","tag-kent-main","tag-mpumalanga","tag-yolandi-du-toit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}