<\/p>\n
In the CM.com Women\u2019s category, Amy Wakefield and Candice Lill (e-FORT. net | SeattleCoffeeCo) claimed Stage 1 while moving into the Women\u2019s orange leader jerseys at the same time.<\/p>\n
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The CM.com Women\u2019s Category Prologue winners Sofia Gomez Villafane and Katerina Nash (NinetyOne-Songo-Specialized) seemed to battle in the latter parts of Stage 1 and eventually finished second, five-and-half minutes behind Lill and Wakefield.<\/p>\n
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For the first half of the CM.com Women\u2019s race, the three leading teams were all together. Kim le Court and Vera Looser (Efficient Infiniti Insure) dropped off the pace before halfway, while Villafane and Nash opened up a small gap on Lill and Wakefield.<\/p>\n
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They were able to get away from the all-South African team when Wakefield had a seemingly innocuous collision with a tree. The post-race footage, however, showed that a branch had pierced her upper arm, with Lill looking on in shock. With no medics nearby, Wakefield tended to the wound as best she could and what the pair had available. \u201cI could see muscle and fat in the gash, but didn\u2019t see any blood, so I just taped it up and got back on the bike,\u201d said Wakefield.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI actually asked Amy if she wanted to abandon the race,\u201d said Lill. \u201cIt was really bad, but Amy is so tough. She just took my duct tape, wrapped it around her bicep and carried on.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Undeterred by the drama, the pair rode on, caught Villafane and Nash at 70km and then surged ahead.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI can\u2019t actually believe we won,\u201d said a delighted Lill at the finish line. \u201cI said to Amy after the crash, \u2018let\u2019s not worry about anything else, let\u2019s just ride our own pace.\u2019 Eventually, we caught Sofia and Kate and we just kept going.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Men\u2019s race was less bruising, but still vicious and vibrant from the start, with 2022 Champions ORBEA x Leatt x Speed Company launching attack after attack. The pair were relentless, giving the field little chance to catch its collective breath.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Beers and Blevins looked up for it in the first 40km, but Blevins appeared to struggle from 60km onwards and as the stage progressed the yellow jersey pair slipped further back into the chasing bunch.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On a route that offered a little bit of everything, from steep singletrack climbs to wild mountain descents that hadn\u2019t seen motor vehicles in decades, the lead pack was made up of SCOTT-SRAM MTB-Racing, Wilier Pirelli Factory, ORBEA x Leatt x Speed Company and Canyon Northwave MTB\u2019s Andreas Seewald and Martin Stosek. The wind, roaring over the region’s mountains at 90km\/h and putting the television helicopter on the ground for much of the day, was a factor, but Baum and Egger never let up – until they couldn\u2019t go anymore.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
With around 20km of racing left, their early-stage efforts came back to bite them, with Egger suffering cramps. The decisive attack came when SCOTT-SRAM MTB-Racing and Wilier Pirelli Factory moved into the final singletrack descent ahead of Baum and Egger, leaving Seewald and Stosek behind too.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The final stretch of the race took the riders down a dirt road and then onto the tar before a singletrack section into the finish area. Rabensteiner and Alleman went first into the final trail and raced onto the home stretch; Schurter and Frischknecht wisely held back, knowing that they had taken yellow.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was an awesome stage that went really well for us,\u201d said Schurter. \u201cWe tried not to go into the red too much and I think we managed that well. The racing was really fast and we just waited until we had an opportunity. I\u2019m happy with the Stage 1 podium and thrilled to be in yellow. I love this race; it\u2019s great when you can start it like this!\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The stage winners, Rabensteiner and Alleman, were also beaming after their efforts. \u201cThat was very tough; the wind made it very hard,\u201d said Rabensteiner. \u201cWe got dropped two or three times in the wind, but we kept fighting back. In fact, the whole race was a fight today. When we sensed we had a chance we just went full gas all the way to the end. It was a great way to win the stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Alleman added, \u201cthere were a lot of attacks from ORBEA x Leatt x Speed Company, which made the racing very hard, but we just gave it everything. There\u2019s still a long week ahead. Now we will take it day by day.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tune in to Stage 2 of the Absa Cape Epic live\u00a0broadcast from 08:30 on Tuesday 21 March on the\u00a0Absa Cape Epic Facebook page<\/a>\u00a0or the\u00a0Epic\u00a0Series YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2023 Absa Cape Epic Stage 1 Results:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Men\u2019s category:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n CM.com Women\u2019s category:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2023 Absa Cape Epic General Classification After Stage 1:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Men\u2019s category:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n CM.com Women\u2019s category:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n View the full Stage 1 results\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cape Town, South Africa (20 March 2023) \u2013\u00a0Fabian Rabensteiner and Wout Alleman (Wilier Pirelli Factory) won Stage 1 of the Absa Cape Epic in Hermanus on Monday, 20 March. The stage victory puts them in fourth place overall. Nino Schurter and Andri Frischknecht (SCOTT-SRAM MTB-Racing) finished second on the 98km stage but moved into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50167,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3260],"tags":[9196,9209,2206],"class_list":["post-50168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-absa","tag-absa-cape-epic","tag-cape-epic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50168","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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