Two KwaZulu-Natal cyclists, Lindani Shusha and Hayley Smith, took the honours in the feature races of the Bestmed Wild Coast Sun MTB Classic near Port Edward on 9 December 2017.<\/p>\n
The 21-year-old Shusha, from Port Shepstone, picked up the men’s 40km title for the first time and Smith, who lives in Durban North, won the women’s event in her maiden appearance.<\/p>\n
Crossing the finishing line at the Wild Coast Sun hotel in 1:48:00, Shusha came home just more than five minutes ahead of Wayne Tarr (1:53:11), with Nduduzo Ndlovu third (1:59:21).<\/p>\n
Shusha said afterwards he had competed in the race before, finishing fourth last year, and was delighted to claim top spot on the podium.<\/p>\n
Although there were some tough climbs along the route, Shusha, who led from the start, said he had felt comfortable throughout.<\/p>\n
“I managed to build a small lead and was able stay in front throughout the race. I felt I was able to handle the uphills and I still felt quite strong at the end.<\/p>\n
“I’m very happy that I was able to win this time after last year’s result.”<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old Smith, who grew up in Margate on the South Coast and is sponsored by Bell Equipment, said she had achieved her objective by taking the women’s 40km title.<\/p>\n
She finished in 2:04:26, ahead of Debrah Thomas (2:10:29) and Jill Lynch (2:31:14).<\/p>\n
“Although it was my first Wild Coast race, I knew what it entailed so I came here with the goal to win. I’m delighted that it turned out that way.”<\/p>\n
Smith also got away early on and initially rode with the leading men’s bunch.<\/p>\n
“After about 5km they left me behind and I rode with another guy for quite a while before dropping him at around the halfway mark. From then I was on my own so it was quite comfortable in the end.”<\/p>\n
She had plenty of praise for the organisers, saying it had been “an awesome experience”.<\/p>\n
“You can see the route guys really put in a lot of work. That made it a special event.<\/p>\n
“There were a few nasty hills, but that was mixed with some great single-track, which gave us a really good experience overall.”<\/p>\n
Honours in the men’s 20km race went to 13-year-old Nicholas de Bruin, who stopped the clock on 1:12:48. The women’s title went to Zinnia Freitas, who finished in 1:38:00.<\/p>\n
Results<\/p>\n
40km<\/p>\n
Men<\/p>\n
1 Lindani Shusha 1:48:00
\n2 Wayne Tarr 1:53:11
\n3 Nduduzo Ndlovu 1:59:21
\n4 Willem Herselman 2:01:05
\n5 Travis Hesam 2:05:51<\/p>\n
Women<\/p>\n
1 Hayley Smith 2:04:26
\n2 Debrah Thomas 2:10:29
\n3 Jill Lynch 2:31:14
\n4 Anel Witthoft 2:47:06
\n5 Roly Ewin 2:53:36<\/p>\n
20km<\/p>\n
Men<\/p>\n
1 Nicholas de Bruin 1:12:48
\n2 Gavin du Plessis 1:18:31
\n3 Gary Williams 1:19:44
\n4 Eschelle Jacobs 1:24:05
\n5 Stephen Vermaak 1:26:07<\/p>\n
Women<\/p>\n
1 Zinnia Freitas 1:38:00
\n2 Fathima Razzak 1:51:29
\n3 Kayla Pretorius 1:54:27
\n4 Ida Geyser 1:58:16
\n5 Karen Preston 2:25:26<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two KwaZulu-Natal cyclists, Lindani Shusha and Hayley Smith, took the honours in the feature races of the Bestmed Wild Coast Sun MTB Classic near Port Edward on 9 December 2017. The 21-year-old Shusha, from Port Shepstone, picked up the men’s 40km title for the first time and Smith, who lives in Durban North, won the […]<\/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":[1743,3094,3103,3102,1747,2601,1815,2373,3105,3104,3106],"class_list":["post-14335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-asg-events","tag-bestmed-wild-coast-sun-mtb-classic","tag-hayley-smith","tag-lindani-shusha","tag-mtb","tag-mtb-classic","tag-mtb-news","tag-mtb-race","tag-wild-coast","tag-wild-coast-mtb-classic","tag-wild-coast-sun-hotel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14335","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=14335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}