Eggett (17) conquers the road race as the 2021 national champ
Jason’s next desired achievement is to get invited to the world championships as one of the selected few to represent South Africa.
Local athletes are overjoyed that competitive sport is picking up in the Covid-19 age. But none are as thrilled as Serengeti’s Jason Eggett (17), who won a title in the 2021 South African Cycling Championships.
He competed in two categories between March 19 and 21, placing third in time trials and pedalling victorious in the road race that stretched 133km as he claimed his first national title.
“Road race is where I do better since it was the first time competing in time trials. With time trials you compete individually by trying to get the best time over a set distance. My best time was 29 minutes and 15 seconds over a 20km route,” he explained. Eggett’s road race victory was recorded in four hours, 15 minutes and 18 seconds. “Most of the way I was cycling very comfortably. I just sat behind a bunch that did most of the work all the way, until I got into a break-away and started working with everyone when there was only 10km to go. This was followed by a six-man break, and luckily I was strongest in the last hill.”
Eggett said the road race had competing forces of just over 40 members that later broke down into smaller groups of 20 in the lead. “Near to the end, we were a group of six that attacked, which happens when you break away from the cluster. We were like one minute apart from each other. On the last climb of one kilometre to go, I attacked.” “Attacking” in cyclist terms is when a rider puts in maximum effort to break away from the group to get ahead.
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Covid-19 also impacted the cycling sports arena as the national championships were cancelled in 2020. “We had our first virtual champs for which you require an indoor trainer. Each competitor had a ‘smart trainer’ and then you had to race virtually where timing was essential to establish performance.”
Eggett has been coached by Mark van der Merwe, who is said to have trained a lot of world athletes who hail from South Africa. His fitness levels did not take a toll during the lapse in active competition last year since he did a lot of training indoors. However, Eggett admitted that his bike skills were a challenge when he hit the open road.
“Coming back into the bunch, nobody knew exactly how to navigate in a group of bikers anymore and everyone was crashing,” he joked.
He has been a cyclist since 2017 when he was introduced to the sport by his dad. “My dad was cycling for a while after he committed in a bet he had with one of his friends. When he got a new bicycle, I started using his old one. I joined the group and the rest is history. The group ride was a very social pastime.”
Eggett added to Express he’d like to fall back on a career in business management and accounting, but his heart is set on becoming a professional cyclist in the world ranks.
“I will be riding in South Africa and establish a name for myself until I’d hopefully be scouted by an overseas team.”
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