Well known Pretoria based professional cyclist, Wessel Botha, and his ImbukoDEV teammate Marco Joubert last week took the overall KAP sani2c title in a time of 08:57:43.

Botha and Joubert crossed the line on the last day four seconds behind PYGA Euro Steel, who took the stage win.

Kim Le Court and Robyn de Groot of Efficient Infiniti Insure won the final stage and comfortably took the women’s title with an overall time of 10:42:55.

The third and final stage of the 18th edition of the KAP sani2c saw the same tight racing as the first two stages, with another sprint finish between the top three teams and solo rider Marc Pritzen of Honeycomb Pro Cycling. PYGA Euro Steel’s Phil Buys and Gert Heyns took the stage win (02:39:02) but with the three and a half minutes they had to make up to secure the title, they had to settle for a stage win and a third position on General Classification (09:01:22).

Insect Science’s Arno du Toit and Keagan Bontekoning were second on the overall podium (08:58:26), not having found the extra power on the last day to break away and gain the 30 seconds it would have taken to win overall.

Pritzen completed the three days of racing in a time of 09:03:46. This secured him the Solo Men Category win. He had initially entered the race as a team Honeycomb Pro Cycling with Travis Barrett, but Barrett had to withdraw due to illness.

There was very little room for manoeuvre on this fast day of 84kms of racing from Jolivet Farm to Scottburgh Golf Club. With an attack attempted by Heyns at the 30km mark, Buys made his way to the front of the group to join his teammate, but the other two teams were not letting them go. All three teams jostled for position throughout the day, and the final sprint saw Marc Pritzen dicing with Gert Heyns for the line, followed closely by Phil Buys and the ImbukoDEV riders.

Joubert said afterwards that the day went according to plan for them.

“Day three at sani2c is super punchy so the pace is mega hard at points and then easy again. We had a 30-second buffer coming into today, so our tactic was just to sit and not give anyone a millimetre. I think PYGA tried everything they could, and they made it super hard at points, but we were glad to stick on their wheel and roll over the line to take the overall win,” Joubert explained.

According to Botha, PYGA was super-aggressive the first half of the race, on all the climbs they put the pressure on but they couldn’t really split the field.

“We just had to ride safe. I was quite concerned about having a mechanical or something but luckily, we made a clean run to the finish. There were a few tricky muddy sections towards the end and on that tall last climb we managed to distance Insect Science, and then it came down to a sprint finish with PYGA. Super happy about the race win and second on the stage,” he remarked.

Several other athletes and celebrities were also part of this popular race again this year.

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