Third round of the carousel and third convincing performance for Simone Avondetto e Luke Braidot to the Cape Epic 2025. The couple of the Wilier-Vittoria MTB Factory Racing closed at 3 th the insidious – and very hot (touched the 38°) – second stage time trial, 66 km very fast from Meerendal Wine Estate a Fairview, Paarl, with “only” 950 meters of altitude difference.
Source: Wilier press release
The good performance allows Avondetto and Braidot to consolidate the 2nd place in the overall standings, which sees them 44” behind the yellow jersey of the Swiss pair formed by Nino Schurter and Filippo Colombo, but 3'48” ahead of the 3rd place of the Germans Lukas Baum and Georg Egger.
Today was really tough, it was hellishly hot. We suffered quite a bit on the flat part, it never ended, and then the last segment of the route was a series of single tracks that those who had already raced in past editions knew well and had a greater advantage. Overall, however, we defended ourselves very well, we lost very little time to the Swiss and gained further ground on many opponents. Now many difficult stages are coming – Braidot and Avondetto
The show will be staged tomorrow Stage 3, with departure and arrival at Fairview, Paarl. They will be 90 km with 2600 meters of altitude difference, intended to put additional strain on the athletes' legs.
HIGHLIGHTS STAGE 2 CAPE EPIC
STAGE 2 RANKING
| 1. | MEGAMO BUFF 1 | Wout ALLEMAN | Martin STOSHEK | 2:13:05 |
| 2. | SCOTT-SRAM MTB Racing | Nino SCHURTER | Philip Viero COLOMBO | 2:13:32 |
| 3. | WILIER-VICTORY | Luca BRAIDOT | Simone AVONDETTO | 2:14:05 |
| 4. | BH Coloma | David VALERO SERRANO | Tiago Jorge FERREIRA OLIVEIRA | 2:14:16 |
| 5. | ORBEA Leatt Speed Company | Lukas BAUM | Georg EGGER | 2:14:50 |
| 6. | Outride | Toyota | Songo | Matthew BEERS | Keegan SWENSON | 2:15:22 |
| 7. | ChemChamp A Funnel | Mark JOUBERT | Tristan NORTJE | 2:16:21 |
| 8. | Torpado x Singer | Fabian RABENSTEINER | Simon STIEBJAHN | 2:16:22 |
| 9. | Singer KTM Racing | Andreas SEEWALD | Jacob HARTMANN | 2:16:28 |
| 10. | Honeycomb 226ers | Mark PRITZEN | Wessel BOTHA | 2:17:09 |
