Defending Jock champion targets Tour victory
JC Nel aims to write his name in the history books in the new three-day tour.
Defending Bestmed Jock Cycle Classique champion JC Nel will aim to write his name in the history books when the new three-day Bestmed Jock Tour rolls out today.
Nel, who races for Bonitas, will head a powerful elite field that features all of South Africa’s top pro teams in the new 299-kilometer tour. With the country’s cycling stars now opting to tough it out in the longer tour, Nel could be the last pro rider to have won SA’s oldest and toughest one-day stage race.
“Winning the Classique last year was a dream come true and it’s definitely something that I’ll look back on in a couple of years and be glad about,” he said. “But there are guys, like Dylan Girdlestone, who’ve won it a couple of times in a row and I won’t get the chance to do that now.”
Instead, Nel will be in line for a different double if he can notch up victory in the inaugural tour. “I’d definitely like that!” he said. The 23-year-old all-rounder said the mountainous tour, which ascends over 7 200 metres was just the kind of event the pro teams had been waiting for.
“The pros have been looking for a race that really challenges your smaller-built guys, the ones who can really go uphill, because we don’t have a lot of those on the calendar. This is now a real target for a lot of the climbers. For myself, this is a race I’d really like to do very well in.”
He said only the toughest would survive the Jock. “In other tours there’s a lot of recovery time in-between, whereas here, if you get dropped on the climbs, it’s going to be a long hard day for you to get back again.”
He named Team EuropcarSA rivals Willie Smit and Nic Dlamini as riders to watch. Nel will have a score to settle with Smit, who just bested him in their last major skirmish. It was the Kremetart stage race at the end of June.
“At both the Jock and Clover tours last year I was first and Willie was second. So I think there’s definitely a ding-dong battle going on here. I hope it’s a good one.”
The Johannesburg resident said Mbombela locals and former roadies-turned-mountain bikers Nico Bell and Gawie Combrinck could also set the cat among the pigeons in the peloton.
“Especially because they’re marathon racers, they can just grind it all day and keep going and going. I remember at last year’s Clover Tour, which also takes place in the Lowveld, they made it tough for us on a couple of stages.”
• The inaugural three-day Bestmed Jock Tour starts in Mbombela today. The one-day Bestmed Jock Cycle Classique takes place tomorrow.
