Two Lowvelders were recently selected to represent South Africa at the African Continental MTB Cross-Country Championships, which took place in Windhoek on Saturday.

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Zandri Strydom, a Hoërskool Rob Ferreira matric, not only became one of only a handful of mountain biking girls from South Africa to be selected to take part in the championship, but she completed the four-lap course in a time of 59 minutes 18 seconds. She was crowned the 2019 African Continental champion. Second were fellow countrywomen Frances Janse van Rensburg (1:01:12) and Emma van Coller (1:05:04). Zandri also formed part of the relay team which won the team relay race.

Reinhart Viljoen, the second Lowvelder who represented the country, managed to secure 10th place in the junior men’s race.
The cream of Africa’s mountain bike riders converged at the IJG Trails at Farm Windhoek, with a total of 12 African countries battling it out for honours at the event which will also serve as a qualifier for next year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.

South Africa, which sent the largest contingent of 46 riders, were as expected, the hot favourites in all of the race categories as they went up against Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, eSwatini, Mauritius, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Tunisia and Morocco.

Zandri started the season off with some bad luck, where she failed to finish the first leg of the South African Cup Series in Bellville due to a broken rim. She convincingly won the next cup, also held in Belville, followed by another win in Bloemfontein. SA Cups 1 and 2 with SA Cups 5 and 6 are back-to-back race events on the Saturday and Sunday. Hosting six Category 1 races is an extremely expensive exercise for Cycling SA and local organisers.

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The back-to-back model is set to reduce organisational costs for the events as well as reducing travel costs for riders. This programme has been used extensively in other countries with substantially positive results.

SA Cup 5 and 6 will be held in Pietermaritzburg. South Africa is the only National Federation internationally hosting six Category 1 events. The reasoning behind this is to ensure a maximum point haul for South Africa in the qualifying process for the Olympic Games, and to ensure that our riders obtain favourable rankings, and therefore starting positions, in UCI World Cups and other international races.

SA Cup 4 will take place Mankele Mountain Bike Park on May 4, where her focus will shift to preparing for SA Champs followed by the world champs in Canada in August.