Damion takes the win at the Tour of Good Hope

A young talented cyclist from eMalahlani competed in the Tour of Good Hope and he came back with a win.

The Tour of Good Hope was 442km over five stages.

On stage 1 which is a 64km ride that started in Paarl and it was a wet day out.

Everyone attacked and tried to get away on the short day but nothing happened as everyone’s legs were still fresh.

It came to a bunch sprint where Damion Gomez took the win. He was six seconds ahead of second place.

On stage 2 which was a 118km ride, it was a drier day at least and it was a very difficult day in the saddle and Damion managed to get into a break away with five other cyclists and he managed to beat them to the finish line extending his overall lead on the second place by three minutes.

On stage 3 it was a time trail of 26km. None of the cyclists has had their time trail gear so they just decided to ride on their road bikes.

Damion managed well and won the stage again by another two minutes; now he was going into stage 4 with a five minute lead on second place.

Stage 4 was the longest day in the saddle but the cyclists were excited about it. It was a 160km cycle called the queen stage.

Damion thought that it was only going to be a 140km and didn’t take in account the 13km neutral zone.

It was easy for the first 90km and when they went up Bainskloof, the attacks started.

“About 15 of us got away up the climb and my team mate attacked and got a one minute gap. We were slowly catching him on the flats as the wind was picking up and I managed to ride over to him and stay away from the chasing group and got two minutes on this stage on my rivals.” Now having a seven minute lead, Damion was quite happy.

Then as the cyclists went into their last day of cycling, the tour was very exciting.

Stage 5 was a 73km and it was the final stage ending at the Taal Monument.

The wind was blowing badly on that day and the group got split quite quickly with the gutters being thrown.

Damion managed to stay in the front group and three riders went up the road in the last 20km.

“I left them knowing that the climb was still to come. I waited and attacked on the climb catching and going past the guys winning the last stage overall. It was a good tour and I was happy to have kept the yellow jersey from day 1,” said Damion.