Outeniqua Primary wins inaugural schools race
Outeniqua Primary School claimed the trophy at the inaugural Ladismith Cheese 7Weekspoort Schools’ MTB Challenge on Saturday.
Outeniqua faced stiff competition from their cross-town rivals Glenwood House and to a lesser extent from Stellenbosch Primary; but came out on top thanks to Alissa Coetzer and Christiaan Hatting scoring maximum points in the sub-juniors girls and boys categories respectively.
Carel Herholdt, of Dryland Event Management, was particularly pleased with the pilot event of the format. “We had over 200 primary school children enter the competition from schools as far away as East London.
There were big teams from local schools like Outeniqua but also one person teams from children who are home schooled. I think it added an interesting dynamic to the event and gives the kids an opportunity to race in the marathon format - which is by far South Africa’s most popular mountain biking discipline.
The Spur Schools’ League does a great job introducing children to cross country racing, but we have seen today that they want to race age appropriate marathon distances too. We will definitely be including a high school category in the 43km distance at the Ladismith Cheese 7Weekspoort
MTB Challenge next year and at the Spur Attakwas Mini in January.”
Along with etching their school’s name on the Ladismith Cheese 7Weekspoort Schools’ MTB Challenge floating trophy, the team from Outeniqua Primary also won a Giant Revel mountain bike, donated by Ladismith’s LSM Cycles.