Providing an opportunity for old varsity friends to renew their rivalry, while also creating a platform for current students to compete, are the driving forces behind next month’s Varsity MTB Challenge.<\/p>\n
In addition, the second edition of the two-day mountain bike race – which starts at Nederburg in Paarl on September 30 – is open to the public as the organisers strive to offer a “race for everyone”.<\/p>\n
Stemming from the successful Varsity Sports concept, Advent Sport and Entertainment Media (Asem) chief executive Francois Pienaar said the race created a space for alumni to relive their varsity camaraderie in a great environment.<\/p>\n
“Mountain biking is one of the fastest growing sports in the world,” said the former Springbok captain and 1995 World Cup winner. “Some may even argue it’s the new golf.<\/p>\n
“There is no other mountain bike race in South Africa that speaks directly to the alumni market, while also giving current students and the public a chance to race for their university.”<\/p>\n
Pienaar said the Varsity Sports concept began with rugby’s Varsity Cup and its success saw it extended to other sports.<\/p>\n
“Only a handful of people believed the inter-collegiate concept similar to the model in the US could work here,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The concept is quite simple – fostering and supporting the development of talent in South Africa, supported by a structured sponsorship and investment platform at a grassroots level.”<\/p>\n
He added it created an opportunity for a more unified competition structure at university level, which acted as a trampoline for young talent to progress to national squads.<\/p>\n
Pienaar said the Varsity MTB Challenge was not a Varsity Sports initiative, but a mountain biking event Asem had launched to gain entry to the market.<\/p>\n
“The vision was to create a mountain bike race aimed at university alumni and the general cycling community.”<\/p>\n
He explained that the country’s eight top university teams competed in a separate race within the Challenge.<\/p>\n
Pienaar felt the Varsity Sports concept had been a success because of the passion the students and alumni had for their varsities.<\/p>\n
“Sport and cultural events unite people like little else,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It also gives you the opportunity to be part of a team. We all want to belong to something and what better place to create community and healthy rivalry than on and around the sports field.”<\/p>\n
He added that the Varsity MTB Challenge was unique as it was the only mountain bike race in SA where the public could ride for the university of their choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Providing an opportunity for old varsity friends to renew their rivalry, while also creating a platform for current students to compete, are the driving forces behind next month’s Varsity MTB Challenge. In addition, the second edition of the two-day mountain bike race – which starts at Nederburg in Paarl on September 30 – is open […]<\/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":[2880,1944,2115,1945,1757,1747,1815,2373,2746,2747],"class_list":["post-9731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-francois-pienaar","tag-mountain-bike","tag-mountain-bike-news","tag-mountain-bike-race","tag-mountain-biking","tag-mtb","tag-mtb-news","tag-mtb-race","tag-varsity-mtb-challenge","tag-varsity-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9731","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=9731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}