Philip Buys Claims Hit Hat Trick Win In Nissan Series

Race Report : Advendurance Media

When Philip Buys (Garmin adidas) competes in one of the elite races of the Nissan series, he is a sure winner.

On Saturday, when Buys won the Nissan Down and Dirty race over 60km in Centurion, he completed his hat trick.

But it was not all plain sailing for Buys.  Early during the race, he and a couple of other riders, missed a race marker and ended up going in the wrong direction.  Luckily, he realised that he had made a mistake after 3 kilometres.

He turned back and then managed, by riding at a very fast pace, to work his way through the back markers. Once he reached the front, Buys just kept going.  It was as if he was time-trialing straight to his victory.  Nobody could keep up with him.

This made the battle for the second and third places quite exciting.  Bryce Munro (DCM) and Shaun-Nick Bester (Cyclelab-Toyota) rode together during most of the race.  In the end, when it mattered most, Munro managed to outsprint Bester to finish second.

Bester’s performance deserves to be mentioned.  He was part of the South African junior road cycling team that had been competing internationally for nearly three months. Bester was one of the stars of the team.

He managed to finish 2nd overall in the UCI 2.1 Tour in Spain and at the Junior World Championship in Moscow he finished 25th, just 23 seconds behind the winner.

Bester hopes that his achievements on the road bike will not go unnoticed and that it will earn him a good road contract for next year.  However, that does not mean that he won’t be competing in mountain bike events anymore.

“I will definitely compete in local mountain bike races whenever there is an opportunity.  Actually, it is easy to compete in mountain bike as well as road races in South Africa, because there is not great depth.”

The women’s 60km race was won by South Africa’s almost forgotten Carla Rowley.

Last year Rowley was one of the most consistent performers in local marathon races.  She was almost a fixture on winners podiums across the country, but since March she simply disappeared from the racing scene.

There was a good reason for that.

Rowley tells the story of how, during a training ride, she took a bad tumble and landed heavily on her left shoulder, tearing some ligaments in the process.  Because she was unable to ride, she spoiled herself with an overseas holiday. When she came back she got ill, which further extended her absence from racing.

Nissan’s Down and Dirty is the first race since March in which she competed.

“I really enjoyed the race. The single-track sections were just awesome and I enjoyed the challenge of the rocky technical sections. In short, it is just so good to be back on my bike and able to race.  I now realise how much I have missed it.”

Leatitia Botha, who had won the first two races of the Nissan series, finished 2nd overall.

“To be quite honest, I would have loved to win but I had one of those days when everything seemed to go wrong.  First I got lossed and then, just as I was beginning to think that my problems were over, I crashed.

“Actually, it was such a stupid mistake.  I was riding on a single-track section behind one of the slower riders.  I decided that it was a good time to top up my energy levels by having a gel.  While I was ‘fishing’ for the gel in my shirt pocket, I suddenly saw this big rock in front of me.  There was nothing I could do to miss it. The next moment I was in the air and then I landed on my head.

“I don’t know how I managed to do it, but I was back on my bike within two seconds and racing like never before. Unfortunately, after about five minutes of hard racing, the adrenaline rush wore off and I began to feel the pain.  Then I started to suffer.  But that is no excuse.  Carla was the stronger rider of the day and she deserved to win.”

Photo credits: MIH Photography