Schoeman adds new record to prolific cycling career
PORT Elizabeth’s Anriette Schoeman added a new record to her prolific career after her strong performances in the Makro Bestmed Cycle Tour at the weekend.
Schoeman won all three Ultimate Quest Challenges of the Eastern Cape’s biggest three cycle tours.
The Ultimate Quest Trophy is awarded to the cyclist who accumulated the most points combined of the road and MTB races of the tours.
In February, she won both the road and MTB races of the Herald Continental Cycle Tour.
This was followed by her winning the road and MTB races of the Daily Dispatch Cycle Tour in East London.
And at the weekend, she won the Makro Ultimate Quest when she finished first in the Makro Bestmed Cycle Tour road race and second in the MTB race.
The race started in near-perfect conditions with the elite women starting with the men in the 90km race.
The new route and many different sponsored riders made for a very interesting and tactical race.
Team Giant from Cape Town tried to dominate tactically but their efforts were neutralised by seasoned riders like Marco Joubert and the top MNU Team riders.
Riders who got away from the bunch were quickly chased down.
As expected, the big move came against the Maitlands climb as Daniel Stroebel broke away to take the first King of the Mountain (KOM) prime. Schoeman took the Queen of the Mountain, leaving Siska van der Bijl and Lauren Coleman behind to be the only woman in the main bunch.
Marco Joubert and Schoeman took the second KOM and QOM respectively on the Chelsea climb.
Brad Gouveris and Joubert got away in the last kilometres of the race in Lorraine.
Gouveris took the sprint, with Joubert second and Jason Meaton third.
Schoeman finished first in the women’s race, with Van der Bijl second and Coleman third.
The MTB event followed on Sunday at Hopewell.
The women started the 55km race with the men in the A bunch.
From the start it was clear that Joubert and Meaton would dominate the race as both contested the Ultimate Quest.
Joubert managed to get away from Meaton to win the race in 1:53:05, with Meaton second in 1:58:11 and Jason Peach third in 2:03:44.
The women’s race was dominated by Schoeman and Kelsey van Schoor as they left the other women behind early in the race.
Schoeman had a mechanical problem 15km into the race when her gear system broke down.
With the help of a Samaritan competitor they managed to get her going again after 10 minutes.
Schoeman then raced to stay ahead of Vicky Laing, who was her main challenge in the Ultimate Quest Challenge.
Van Schoor had an awesome race, winning in 2:19:34, with Schoeman second.