South African Road Championships - CN

Pretoria, South Africa, March 3-6, 2005

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Stage 4 - March 6: Elite Men's Road Race

Barloworld 1-2-3 in SA Champs

Barloworld/Valsir had it all their own way in the South African Championship Road race in Pretoria on Sunday with Ryan Cox leading a Barloworld trio over the line to take out all three podium places. Tiaan Kannemeyer, who won the SA time trial on Thursday, was credited with second place while Jock Green rounded up the medals.

Green rode at the front of the race almost from the outset. He went away on the third lap (after 30km) of the 178km course along with Reinhardt du Plessis (Microsoft) and Ben-Melt Swanepoel. At the back Barloworld were riding at their own pace, controlling proceedings in the peloton until Cox and Kannemeyer decided to ride across after 120km. At that point the gap to the leaders, who were down to two with Du Plessis dropping off the pace, was more than 4 minutes.

When Green heard his teammates were on the way he eased up slightly, but not enough for Swanepoel to hold on - he was dropped with 25km to go - and it wasn't long before Kannemeyer and Cox made the junction and together they rode away to the finish. They had a lead of more than 2 minutes crossing the finish line ahead of a group of five chasers.

The course was a difficult one with the riders having to complete 15 laps of the route past the Union Buildings before taking on the climb of Tom Jenkins twice. It was evident that Barloworld are reaping the rewards of a structured campaign in Europe and the local lads were found wanting in a big way.

"It worked out like we planned," said Barloworld directeur sportif, John Robertson. "We didn't want to leave it too late for Ryan and Tiaan to get across and the plan was always for them to go after 120km. "We didn't want to get into a situation where we would end up taking too many riders with us later in the race."

With this strategy Cox and Kannemeyer ended up time trialling for 50km - the last 20km with Green - to round off the Barloworld success story of the day.

Results

1 Ryan Cox (Barloworld-Valsir)
2 Tiaan Kannemeyer (Barloworld-Valsir)
3 Jock Green (Barloworld-Valsir)