South African Road Championships - CN

South Africa, March 4-6, 2004

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Day 2 - March 6: Durbanville - Road Races, 175/150 km (M/U23)

The day of the strongmen

It was all-out cycling war on at least two fronts in the hills of Durbanville outside CapeTown on Saturday, and the winners of the major men's road titles, the SA elite champion, Ryan Cox (Barloworld-Androni) and the U23 winner, Eckhard Bergh (Minolta) had to really earn them the hard way.

Cox was involved in a desperate four-man dog-fight for almost all of the 175km of the elite race until he made the decisive final break early in the last of the seven very tough laps.

Cox, who recently produced his career best performance to finish second at the prestigious Tour de Langkawi in Malaysia, just 48 seconds behind the winner, fought it out with two of his team-mates, defending champion, David George, and tough all-rounder, Tiaan Kannemeyer, as well as the brave "lone ranger" from HSBC, Nic White, the SA national team captain.

After the first lap was dominated by the (expected) break away from super-vet, Martin Sanders (Panda), together with surprise partner, former SA champion, Jacques Fullard, who stretched their advantage to over four minutes at one stage, the peloton inevitably reeled them in over the second lap, and then got down to more serious business on lap three.

HSBC's hot prospect, Jamie Ball, "popped" as the leading quartet began to take shape and his teammate Nic White had to endure being savaged by the repeated attacks from the powerful Barloworld trio of Cox, George, and Kannemeyer. Kannemeyer proved to be the weaker of his teammates and was gradually dropped with a little less than two laps to go, making it two Barloworld riders versus the gritty White.

Between the first two hills at Robinson Road and Vissershok, Cox pounced and rode away with just 24km to go. With White hanging on by his finger-nails and Kannemeyer already gone, he needed only to break his team-mate, George, and that he achieved very effectively.

That was all Cox needed to support his winning attitude and he held off the world class George all the way up to the mountain top finish at Tiekiedraai, leaving the brave White in third.

"He was really a very worthy winner of the title, when you think that his major rivals were all former SA champion themselves," said race organizer, Chris Willemse, snr.

U23 Men

After the excitement of that superb display of world-class cycling, there was still more to come in the highly competitive U23 title battle. The red hot favourite for the championship was Microsoft's Daryl Impey, the winner of the SA time trial title on Thursday. Protected by his team, Impey was prominent in the massive bunch early in the race, but, never too far away, was the looming figure of Minolta's Eckhard Bergh.

Tuks' rider, Willie van Zyl, was also a force in one of the early breaks, but, despite opening up a gap of over two minutes at the end of lap three, the intimidating bunch were taking no prisoners and no one had any advantage as they faced the last three laps.

The Microsoft team forced the pace hard to try and give young Impey as much support as possible and the time trial champion looked to be in with a fair chance of landing a very lucrative double as they faced the gruelling Robinson Road climb for the last time.

However Eckhard Bergh had other ideas, and he struck hard as they climbed Robinson road for the last time. Surprisingly, Impey had no answer, and the Minolta rider set off for home looking as fresh as he did the start. Bergh rode right away from the field to cross the line four minutes ahead of a never say die Impey, with a game Waylon Woolcock (Tuks) claiming an excellent third place.

Results

Elite Men, 171,5 km

1 Ryan Cox (Barloworld)
2 David George (Barloworld)
3 Nicolas White (HSBC)

U23 Men

1 Eckhard Bergh (Minolta)
2 Darryl Impey (Microsoft)
3 Waylon Woolcock (Tuks)