Epic finish for Karl and his Bulls

Cape Town – Shortly after Team Bulls had won the Absa Cape Epic after the seventh stage at the Meerendal wine estate, Urs Huber broke the cork on his bottle of Champagne as he made to spray it.

Credit: Chris Ricco/BackpagePix

Karl Platt of Germany celebrates winning the 2016 Absa Cape Epic on Sunday. Photo: Chris Ricco

Cape Town – Shortly after Team Bulls had won the Absa Cape Epic after the seventh stage at the Meerendal wine estate, Urs Huber broke the cork on his bottle of Champagne as he made to spray it. It was the first mistake he and teammate Karl Platt had made in the eight days of a race they had led from beginning to end.

For Platt, the German who won the first Epic in 2004 with Namibian Mannie Heymans, it was a record-equalling fifth victory; for Huber, his first. For Annika Langvad and Ariane Kleinhans (Spur Specialized) it was a record third win in a row in the women’s race. Yesterday was a day for records on the Epic. It was also a day for tears and for the small miracle of hearing Platt say he had no words to describe how he felt after waiting six years for his fifth victory.

“I am speechless,” said Platt, who equalled the record of Christoph Sauser, who won his fifth Epic last year. The winning margin was over 13 minutes. “It was a dream to win five Epics. We surprised ourselves on the prologue when we won. Everything just went perfectly. It is unbelievable. I have no words. I can’t tell you how happy I am. I will be back next year. I will be back for the next two years.”

“It was really a good week,” said Uber, the Swiss who finally got a victory after five years of riding the Epic with Platt. “We could control the race for the rest of it, and ride tactically. I was a bit nervous at the start, but once the race began and we could control the pace for a while, I calmed down. We could see that lots of teams were going for the stage win, but we decided that was not for us. Today, we said, no suffering.”

German national champion Manuel Fumic suffered to get back on to the wheel of his Brazilian Cannondale Factory Racing teammate Henrique Avancini in the final kilometres. Fumic dug deep on the trails near the end of the race to get on to the wheel of Avancini, who rode with tactical nous to neutralise the two Centurion Maude by Meerendal teams looking for a win on their sponsor’s home estate.

“We’ve wanted this all week,” said Fumic. “We targeted the Prologue, then stage four and today. This was our last chance at a stage win after the other two didn’t work out, so we were really determined to take this one. There is nothing better than winning the final stage of the Cape Epic.”

Langvad and Kleinhans looked to be on course to cap their overall victory with a win on the final stage, but German Sabine Spitz and Ukranian Yana Belomoina (Team Sport for Good) put the hammer down in the final kilometres to take their third stage win in a row. This pair, with a 21-year age difference between them, could be a force for Spur Specialized to watch out for next year in the Sasol-sponsored women’s category.

“On the final climb Yana was riding like crazy,” said Spitz. “She overtook a men’s team and I was sitting behind them thinking ‘oh my gosh’, then I saw her overtake the girls and I realised I had to use my last bit of power to get to her.”

“It was a difficult stage after a tough week of racing, but we are happy with our overall win and super happy with our third Epic title,” said Dane Langvad. “Winning the Epic is a big goal. To celebrate I’m going to drink some of the great South African wine that I didn’t get to drink this week.”

The South African flag was flown high by Waylon Woolcock and Darren Lill (USN Purefit), who were sixth overall, but, more importantly, won the Absa African competition for the best team from the continent. “I’m relieved,” said Woolcock. “It’s a relief to be done. We’re very happy to take the Absa African special jersey. That was our goal all week long and we’ve been able to come here and achieve that.”

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