Cycling: The women's Stage 2 classification at this year's Absa Cape Epic underwent a dramatic change today following a late decision by the UCI Race Stewards.
Although they were the first to cross the finish line after 4:37.31.1 hours, Ariane Kleinhans and Annika Langvad had to worry until late in the afternoon to find out their actual placement. They had unintentionally left the course and thus shortened 5 kilometers of the race distance of 92 kilometers. It was a difficult decision for the official race stewards after listening to explanations from the RECM Specialized Team.
The Kleinhans/Langvad team had turned left instead of following the straight course and later rejoined the circuit without realizing that they had cut a 5km stretch.
After analyzing this situation for several hours, also with the help of video material from the handlebar cameras, the stewards imposed a time addition of 13,39 minutes to the stage time, since the two had ridden 5 kilometers less than the rest of the participants.
In addition, a time penalty of one hour was imposed for leaving the marked route without permission. Due to these time penalties, the women's team RECM Specialized is now 11th in the daily standings.
As a result, the two are no longer in the leader's jersey, but have slipped to 4th place in the overall ranking for the time being. They now lead the Ascendis Health team with Jennie Stenerhag (SWE) and Robyn de Groot (RSA).
Team RECM is now 27.06,8m 3s behind the new leaders. The third-placed riders, Sally Bigham and Christina Kollmann from the Sellaronda Hero team, moved up to second place on the stage and thus third place in the overall standings.
Tomorrow all Absa Cape Epic riders will leave the village of Elgin to bike 128 kilometers to Worcester. Kleinhans and Langvad are now chasing the orange leader's jersey in the women's ranking for the first time, which is a real test for their psyche and physique.