Stellenbosch local Tiffany Keep won her maiden Cape Town Cycle Tour title at the 46th edition of the popular race on Sunday (10 March).
The 23-year-old ended on top of the podium in the elite women’s race, while Kent Main claimed the top spot in the elite men’s event. Keep edged S’annara Grove out with a bike throw on the line to claim victory by a tyre’s width after a fiercely contested sprint.
The early headwinds and lack of teams made for a tactical first half for the women to the 78 km route. The favourites marked one another and were content to bide their time.
Smitswinkel usually serves to thin the field, but with a blocking headwind a large peloton summitted the opening climb together, then raced downhill and downwind past the Cape Point National Park and through Scarborough and Misty Cliffs together.
Only on the run into Chapman’s Peak Drive did the group begin to stretch meaningfully as Juanita Mackenzie went on a solo raid.
At the foot of the famous climb Grove powered past Mackenzie with Keep on her wheel. Grove set the pace up Little Chappies before Keep countered on Chapman’s Peak proper. Only South African road champion Carla Oberholzer could follow DAS Hutchinson Brother UK rider, Keep’s tempo.
Grove managed the gap behind and kept the Sandton City Cycle Nation rider and her fellow leader to a 10-second margin over the summit of the climb.
Dropping to Hout Bay the women’s favourites came back together, with Vera Looser, Jo van de Winkel and Catherine Colyn joining Grove at the front with Oberholzer and Keep.
Through Hout Bay there was a moment for the leading six to compose themselves before more fireworks at Suikerbossie.
Van de Winkel was the first to attack climbing out of Hout Bay, but Keep blew past her within 500 m of the summit, with Grove, Oberholzer and Looser in tow.
Van de Winkel dug deep to hold Looser’s wheel, but was not able to do so.
As such a quartet of favourites started the descent past the Twelve Apostles together. They then worked together well to ensure none of the chasers were able to regain contact. Once Keep, Grove, Oberholzer and Looser reached Beach Road, Sea Point, it was clear the race would be determined by a sprint.
Grove was the first to kick, jumping clear by a handful of metres and then trying to hold her power through the agonising final 50 m.
Just when it looked like the Doltcini O’Shea Cycling Team rider was going to do enough, Keep came ranging up on her outside. The pair threw for the line in unison and the DAS Hutchinson Brother UK rider edged it by the narrowest of margins.
Looser and Oberholzer thundered across the line heartbeats later, with only a few hundreds of a second separating the top four. Van de Winkel rolled across the line solo in fifth, 15 seconds behind the winner.
The next five minutes were anxious ones for Keep and Grove as they awaited the official decision. When it came, Keep was elated.
“We didn’t know who got it,” Keep confessed. “It was super, super close. S’annara jumped me with about 100 m to go, and I had to work quite hard to get back to her wheel. So ja, I’m really very happy with that!”
Keep’s victory makes her the first new Cape Town Cycle Tour elite women’s winner since 2018 and only the third woman to claim the women’s old race title.
She joins Kim le Court and Cerise Willeit in this prestigious group.
