How nice to see the tricolor jersey at the top of the Cape Epic! Fabian Rabensteiner and Wout Alleman (Wilier-Pirelli) made no mistakes and won the sixth stage of the Absa Cape Epic. Speed Company Racing (Lukas Baum and Georg Egger) finished second and gained very important damage minutes of Canyon Northwave MTB. Now the disadvantage between the 2 teams is only 2'45 ”and the whole game will be played tomorrow in the last stage.
In the sixth stage Wilier-Pirelli dominated: they attacked on the first climb, taking with them Speed Company Racing and Toyota-NinetyOne-Specialized (Matt Beers and Christopher Blevins). Beers and Blevins soon lost the pace of the wild Wilier-Pirelli, able to leave Speed Company Racing on the spot. The leaders of the Canyon Northwave MTB yellow jersey (Andreas Seewald and Martin Stošek) appeared to be in trouble, most notably Andreas Seewald, who is battling a rib injury.
From the 40km finish, Wilier-Pirelli managed to break away from the pursuers, driving to the finish without too much pressure for the last 30km.
“That was a really good day for us,” said Fabian Rabensteiner. “We were feeling good this morning so we decided to attack on the first ascent. We were in a group for a while and that helped save some energy; Speed Company Racing attacked at the second point of water but we felt strong and counterattacked. From that moment on we never looked back and we won. "
With one stage to go, Canyon Northwave MTB has a total time of 24: 54: 46.6, with Speed Company Racing at 24: 57: 32.2. Beers and Blevins are third in the overall standings, almost eight minutes behind the leaders.
Relatively short last stage with 68km from Stellenbosch to Val de Vie Estate: Speed Company Racing will try it all. The Canyon team is warned.
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WOMEN RACE
The NinetyOne-songo-Specialized team of Sofia Gómez Villafane and Haley Batten won the third stage in this Cape Epic, strengthening their leadership. Now I'm leading Faces Rola (Candice Lill and Mariske Strauss) by over 16 minutes in the overall standings.
It was another two-way fight between women: the architects of this fight are still NinetyOne-songo-Specialized and Faces Rola who drifted away from the other women's teams at the start of competition day. BMC MTB Racing finished third with 11 minutes behind the winners.
“It was crazy today,” said Haley Batten. “It was a real battle on the trails; there was so much singletrack. From that point of view, it was probably the most difficult stage we made at this year's Absa Cape Epic ”.
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Tune in to live from the final leg of the Absa Cape Epic 2022 from 07:30 on www.cape-epic.com.
