MTB-News: In the early Sunday morning the starting signal for this year's Absa Cape Epic was fired at the Meerendal winery near Cape Town. Sabine Spitz and her partner Robyn de Groot in particular were able to put their stamp on the short, crisp prologue over 26 km and win the day. In the men's category, the Cannondale Factory Racing Team around Manuel Fumic and Henrique Avancini drove in their own league and clearly distanced the competition. Last year's winners Karl Platt and Urs Huber (Team BULLS) suffered a setback, but are still within striking distance of the leaders before the first real stage.
One of the highlights of the year, the Cape Epic, started early in the MTB season. The prologue over 26km and 750hm with some tricky trail passages already offered a little foretaste of what the riders can expect in the next seven days.
The first women's teams of two started early in the morning on the dusty trails close to Cape Town. The strongest women's duo today was undoubtedly Sabine Spitz with her partner Robyn de Groot. The German doyen, who only celebrated her premiere at Cape Epic last year, showed together with the South African champion that even at the age of 45 she can still keep up with the best of the best. Especially on the climbs, the German-South African team showed its teeth to the competition and gained many seconds. In the end, the day's win was recorded, 39 seconds ahead of Meerendal CBC with Esther Süd from Switzerland and Jeannie Stenerhag from Sweden. The start didn't go quite so smoothly for last year's winner Ariane Lüthi, who started with the German marathon specialist Adelheid Morath as the Spur team. With a mortgage of a little more than two minutes, the two will start the first real stage tomorrow.
For the men, fans and spectators can look forward to what is perhaps the strongest and most varied starting field in the history of the Cape Epic this year. In addition to last year's winners from Team BULLS with Karl Platt and Urs Huber, the who's who of the XC and marathon scene will be at the start at the Cape Epic 2017: world champion and Olympic champion Nino Schurter, XC powerhouse Manuel Fumic, multiple Cape Epic winner Christoph Sauser or the German Marathon legend Markus Kaufmann are just a few of the many illustrious names. In addition, some “MTB strangers” also dare to start in the legendary stage race: Joaquim Rodriguez and José Antonio Hermida, two Spanish “cycling pensioners”, are starting, cyclocross legend Sven Nys is also there, as is Tour de France winner Cadel Evans.
Today's prologue, which was very short at 26 km, was undoubtedly a case for the cross-country specialists in the field, who are very familiar with short distances, high loads and technical trails from their everyday racing - for the marathon teams it was all about damage limitation today before they start in the coming ones days can play to their strengths on the long, exhausting stages. In this respect, it was not a big surprise that Manuel Fumic and Henrique Avancini from the Cannondale Factory Racing XC team were able to celebrate the opening win. But the superiority and sovereignty with which the German-Brazilian duo kept the competition in check was impressive. More than 90 seconds separated the two second-placed Nino Schurter and Matthias Stirnemann from the day's winners.
The difference between the XC pros and the marathonists became even clearer; Karl Platt and Urs Huber had to be content with sixth place and a deficit of 3 minutes and 23 seconds. In the end, Markus Kaufmann and Jochen Käß (Centurion Vaude) missed the lead by almost four minutes. Of course, given the many kilometers to be covered, the time differences are currently only a pattern of limited value, but some teams should already feel the pressure clearly before the start of the first 'real' stage tomorrow.
The stages of the Cape Epic 2017
Tomorrow it's off from the coastal town of Hermanus on a 101km long loop over 2.300m of altitude difference - a first real determination of where the favorites are in the overall standings.