PE riders win Daily Dispatch Cycle Tour

ANRIETTE Schoeman (Africa Silks/Bestmed) and Bradley Gouveris (Bestmed NMMU) took full honours when they won the Daily Dispatch Cycle Tour in extreme wet conditions at the weekend.

The race started at Buffalo Park with driving rain pouring down on the elite men’s and women’s mixed bunch.

Within the first 10km, the race started breaking up into two bigger bunches followed by many cyclists who lost contact with the leading bunch.

The first break came up the 5km Hemming Way climb – Jonas Schomburg, JaredSalzwedel and Clinton Gravett had made the initial break in the race on the 5km Hemming Way climb 16km into the race.

Gravett, who took the King of the Mountains category, and Schomburg dropped Salzwedel after the halfway before he fought back along with Gouveris and Alers.

The top four then dropped Gravett in the closing stages, before Gouveris and Alers moved just ahead.

Gouveris then made his move on the final climb to put enough space between himself and Alers to take a good win in 2:48:14.

In the women’s division, Schoeman stormed to a fifth title in a row in 2:58:27.

Schoeman and Cindy Schwulst, from East London, were the only women left in the main bunch as the bunch approached the Queen of the Mountains prime 16km into the race.

Schwulst launched a massive attack on Schoeman with 1km to go but was counter attacked by Schoeman with 300m to go.

Schoeman took the Queen of the Mountains and managed to stay away, slowly opening a time gap on the bunch with Schwulst to finish first in the women’s race and seventh in the men’s.

In the 50km race, Benjamin Brown took first overall, Patrige Chimwendo second and Jason Burmeister third.

On the women’s side, top honours went to Eden Smith with Carol Cloete second and Tarryn Delport third.

In the 19km, the top men were Caylem Essen, Keegan Lottering and Lourens Spies, while the first women were Ashleigh Mayhead, Nadia van Zyl and Madison Mann.