First-stage win for SA’s Lill and Strauss eclipses Baum and Eggers’s feat

On what was a wonderful day for SA women, the best of friends at the 2022 Absa Cape Epic had the best of days halfway through the race as Germans Lukas Baum and Georg Egger (Speed Company) led from start to finish to take the 101km third stage in Greyton on Wednesday. 

Their feat was surpassed by a win for the host country as SA’s Candice Lill and Mariske Strauss (Faces Rola) beat the overall leaders in the orange-jersey race, the Argentinian-American pair of Sofia Gomez Villafane and Haley Batten (NinetyOne-Songo-Specialized), in a sprint to win by 2sec.

It was a first Epic stage win for Lill and Strauss. South Africans Hayley Preen and Mari Rabie (Private Client Holdings), who had animated the women’s race for most of the stage and were 2min in front at 46km, took third.

It was, remarked one veteran watcher of the race, the first time four South Africans stood on the elite podium at the Epic. The perfectly named Speed Company won by 2min 15sec ahead of defending champion Matt Beers of SA and his American teammate, Christopher Blevins (Toyota-NinetyOne-Specialized), with overall leaders German Andreas Seewald and Czech Martin Stosek (Canyon Northwave) settling for third after suffering a puncture.

Seewald and Stosek, who are 4:42 ahead of Speed Company with Beers and Blevins just more than two minutes further back in third, said that despite the flat tyre they felt good during the stage, which sounds ominous for the rest. They will have best friends Baum and Egger shadowing them. 

Full gas

“Lukas and I have been best friends for 10 years. We have known each other since under-15 days. We know each other by heart. I can tell how far and fast he can go just by looking at his legs. It’s a perfect symphony for racing,” said Egger.

“This is how we train. We felt super good and could play the situation to our strengths during the stage. We could go full gas most of the time. We didn’t know anything about the route. I felt super strong on the first climb and I went full gas there. Luckily, Lukas could follow me. At the end of the stage, Lukas was the stronger rider and pulled me to the finish.” 

Beers, just the second South African to win the Epic after the late Burry Stander, also sounded a warning to the rest of the field on a day when former champion Nino Schurter had to nurse his Swiss teammate, Lars Foster, home a day after they had taken the second stage on Tuesday.

“I felt a lot better today,” said Beers. “I felt like myself. The Speed Company guys rode really well. They got the gap and just kept it there. It was probably easier to ride alone than in the bunch, but we have many more days.” 

“It was a hard start,” agreed Blevins. “They were ripping it. They were out in the wind alone all day. We were sitting, conserving energy. I wasn’t feeling too great. We found our rhythm a little over halfway through. We were ripping as hard as we could, so we got some time, but not enough.” 

Worked together

Strauss and Lill did more than enough on Wednesday to be 10min behind Villafane and Batten in the overall standings. “It was good. I just told Candice we executed really well … finally,” said Strauss.

“We just stuck it out today. All three teams worked together, and then heading into that last 15km of single-track things started shaping up. 

“I told Mariske we couldn’t let Mari and Hayley get too far ahead of us. They are strong riders, but we knew they weren’t close on GC [general classification]. It was more about getting the time on the people behind us. It was super tactical today, which is awesome” said Lill.

“Mariske and I did a bit of homework on this stage so we knew what the finish was like coming in. We started making it hard from the last climb and into the last 3km. We stayed on the front. We knew you couldn’t pass so easily, so we are happy with that.”