"Close, But No Cigar" For DCM At Illovo Eston

Race Report : Zoon Cronje

“Close, but no cigar”

That appeared to be Kevin Evans’s (MTN) challenge at the Illovo Marathon over 60km in Eston on Sunday. The moment the gun went to send the riders on their way, Evans took the lead and he never looked back.

Brandon Stewart (DCM Chrome) tried to take up the challenge, but he made a slight error of judgement after the King of the Mountain prime and that cost him the race and had to settle for the 2nd position.

According to Stewart, he was riding shoulder to shoulder with Evans.

“Just after the ‘King’ I realised that there was a group of riders – Max Knox (DCM Chrome), David George (MTN) and Ben-Melt Swanepoel (Specialized) – just behind us. I thought it would be good strategy if they were allowed to join us because there is always strength in numbers.  Therefore, I decided to ride a little bit slower and wait for them to catch up. However, Kevin kept going. That was when I lost the race because, however hard I tried, I could not catch him again.”

Knox had one of those days at the ‘race office’ where nothing would go his way.

“When I joined up with Brandon, the two of us worked together very well and managed to drop David, but then things started to go wrong for me. Due to rain, the route was wet and very slippery which caused me to take a tumble in one of the technical sections. I told Brandon to keep riding and not wait for me.

“After getting back on my bicycle, I was doing quite OK.  I managed to catch and pass most of the riders except Brandon and Kevin, but then ‘Lady Luck’ deserted me again. I punctured after about 40 kilometres. I ‘bombed’ the tyre and was just regaining my good rhythm when I was forced to stop again to fix a puncture.  Unfortunately I had no more ‘bombs’ left.

“Luckily for me, when Philip Buys (Garmin adidas) and another rider came past they threw me a ‘bomb’.

“I again managed to catch up with many of the riders.

In the end, Knox was involved in a titanic battle to catch up and pass Buys, but he just could not do so.

Buys managed to beat Knox by a mere 15 seconds to finish 3rd, with Knox 4th.

Rourke Croeser (DCM Chrome) also managed a top-ten finish.

However, Croeser explained that he was not racing for a podium finish.

“At the moment, my only goal is the World Championship in Australia. I used today’s race as a hard training session. I wanted to see how hard I could push myself after a week in which I had done nearly 23 hours of hard training.

“To still achieve a top ten position is a bonus.”

Johnny Kritzinger (DCM Chrome) was in devastating form during Die Burger’s mountain bike race in the Western Cape when he won the race over 60km in 2 hours 34 minutes and 30 seconds. Arno Viljoen (GT Mr Price) was 2nd in 2:39:46 and Erik Kleynhans 3rd in 2:41:43.