Today’s first full stage of the Omnicane Southern Tropical Challenge 2012 was a true proverbial game of two halves. It took in a 65km loop around the southern part of the island, through some truly beautiful scenery.
The first half of the stage, though, was a bit of a phony war. All the climbing in the stage was in the second half, which meant that after some obligatory first stage over-excited chopping and corner-bombing in the first few k, a group settled down to cover the first flattish kilometres. It felt a bit like a road race, with some tarmac and some dirt tracks, but not much to sort the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.
Ben Melt Swanepoel, of the GreenField Team, cool as as a cucumber after his team’s win today
The cease-fire had to break at some point, though, and to those who knew the parcours it must have been pretty obvious where it was going to happen. After a gentle grassy double-track climb, the race hit a concrete wall for about 0.8k. Some riders were reporting Garmin gradients of 35%, and it certainly felt like that.
Just before the climb, yesterday’s prologue winners, the GreenField Team of Yannick Lincoln and Ben Melt Swanepoel, had had a minor mechanical, leaving Cedric Gasnier and Yannick Cornille from La Reunion to set the pace. Towards the top, they were hauled in by the hard-charging Kenyans, Kamau Davidson and David Kinjah of Omnicane Simabaz, who climbed amazingly strongly, only held back by some shifting issues. Also near the top though, Lincoln and Swanepoel surged towards the front, having pulled back the time they lost with mechanical issues.
Half of the Kenyan duo, with full leg-warmers! He swears they keep him cool…
This was to prove decisive, as over the rollers that followed the top of the climb, they hit the burners hard and pulled away from the pack. They consolidated this advantage strongly on the subsequent descent, through the second feed station and up the final climb, to finish as convincing winners in 2:38, eight minutes over their closest challengers, Explosive Riders Yannick Cornille and Cedric Gasnier. One minute further back were Jeff Bossler and Will Hayter of Subaru-MarathonMTB.com, followed in short order by the Kenyan team.
Yannick Cornille of the Explosive Riders team, showing the effort that took second place
Lincoln and Swanepoel have now established a fairly commanding lead. With two stages to go, anything could still happen, but they look to be in a strong position.
Full results to follow.