Cyclist ride for a good cause
The 33rd Dis-Chem Ride for Sight was held in near-perfect weather conditions at Boksburg City Stadium on February 20.
The 33rd Dis-Chem Ride for Sight was held in near-perfect weather conditions at Boksburg City Stadium on February 20.
The road race saw a surprisingly large field in these Covid-19 times of 2 480 loyal supporters of this race, which is a seeding event for the Cape Town Cycle Tour 2023.
The men’s race, over a tough 116km course, was settled by a full-bunch sprint to the finish.
This saw the best bunch sprinter of the lot, Josh van Wyk, who is a renowned Velodrome track expert, multiple SA champion and the record holder of the Paarl Boxing Day 25 miler at 53 minutes 11 seconds, having to go two and a half times his favourite distance to beat all comers in the dash for the cash at the fast and tricky finish.
In the second wheel in a narrowly fought finish, in fact, quite a heavily contested finish, was Gustav Basson who rode brilliantly and race favourite, going down by just a bicycle to the flying van Wyk.
The third wheel went to the hardest worker in the peloton – David Maree. He is known as ‘Mr Fetch It’ and once again he almost fetched the gold but ended up on the third rung of the podium.
The fast and favourable conditions meant that the bunch were unable to split themselves from any of the big sprinters and ended in the very exciting sprint finish, sadly not witnessed by the usual enthusiastic spectators who were restricted due to Covid-19 regulations.
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The women’s race was a small but high-quality field that saw race favourite Carla Oberholzer, bronze medalist at the recent SA championships, securing herself yet another victory.
Oberholzer was too good for the opposition and outsprinted second-placed Lize- Ann Louw with Michel Botha coming in third.
All the categories were hotly contested with many bunch finishes throughout the morning.
Jacque Fullard, a previous race winner and Vets A category winner, came back to win the Vets B category from David Cooke. Fullard has won many races over the years, including the SA Road championships twice.
This was a superbly presented race with very few incidents.
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