After a three-year hiatus the 2024 songo.info Champions Race, presented by fibertime, again proved why it was a mainstay of the packed March cycling calendar last Wednesday evening (13 March).
Riders and fans were treated to an afternoon of fantastic racing and an electrifying atmosphere, as the streets and footpaths of Khayamandi played host to some of the world’s best mountain bikers.
With teams gearing up for the Absa Cape Epic, the 20-minute plus one-lap efforts were a bit outside of the training the elite riders have been putting in recently, yet both the men’s and women’s elite races were fiercely contested before Matt Beers and Anne Terpstra emerged victorious.
For the first time in the event’s decade-long history the races were live-streamed on fibertime TV.
The electric bikes got the racing underway, and former E-MTB World Championship top 10 finisher Matt Lombardi displayed the skills that have made him the two-time South African enduro champion.
Lombardi was pushed throughout the race by Stellenbosch skills coach Michard Meets. Behind the battle for first, Tim Wilkins won the Specialised Bicycles office race, holding off the boss, Bobby Behan, and a number of colleagues, to take third.
The women’s elite race followed, allowing some of the riders who will be facing off in the UCI Women’s category at the Epic to get a sense of each other’s form. Terpstra of Ghost Factory Racing crossed the line in first place, followed by her teammate Nicole Koller, in second, and Alexis Skarda of Efficient Infiniti Insure SCB SRAM in third.
In the men’s race the pace was high from the off, with the various Specialized team riders taking turns to push the tempo. In the end, though, Beers of Toyota Specialized NinetyOne ended on top of the podium, with Alex Miller (Toyota Specialized) in second place and Howard Grotts (Toyota Specialized NinetyOne) in third.
