Grit helps stitched-up Wakefield and Lill to keep Epic lead
A branch tears open rider’s arm on Monday’s first stage around Hermanus
21 March 2023 - 21:11
byKevin McCallum
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Candice Lill and Amy Wakefield during stage 2 of the 2023 Absa Cape Epic race from Hermanus High School in Hermanus, March 21 2023. Picture: SAM CLARK
On Monday, Amy Wakefield took the lead of the Absa Cape Epic held together by grit and sticky tape. On Tuesday’s second stage, her biceps held together by more stitches than she may care to count, Wakefield and her partner, Candice Lill, held on to their lead in the CMcom UCI women’s category with a ride of nous and savvy.
Wakefield’s arm was pierced by a branch on Monday’s first stage around Hermanus after she went a little too close to a tree, slicing her arm so deeply she could see “muscle and fat in the gash”. She patched herself up with duct tape, but required four hours’ surgery on Monday night. Asked about it, she said, “I’m not Superwoman,” only for her SeattleCoffeeCo teammate Lill to disagree: “Yes, you are.”
“It was pretty sore. It is what it is. My body did take a bit of a knock yesterday so we really just had to take it conservatively because I had had surgery for four hours,” said Wakefield. “We rode a bit defensively and wanted to keep in orange [the leader’s jersey], which we did.”
Kim le Court and Vera Looser (Efficient Infiniti Insure), the Mauritius/Namibia pair, took the win on the stage after 116km and 1,850m of climbing around the Overberg, beating defending champion Argentine Sofia Gomez Villafane and her new partner Katerina Nash (NinetyOne-songo-Specialized) in a cleverly crafted sprint move.
Lill and Wakefield were third with the six riders sticking together for the entire day. Looser pulled ahead as they rolled back into Hermanus. She was joined by Le Court and they powered home to take the win by 1.6 sec.
Really hard
Lill and Wakefield retain their 5 min 24 sec gap overall from Villafane and Nash, while Le Court and Looser have 10:40 to make up.
“It was a really long day and all the teams were equally matched today, so it was good racing. There were parts where it was quite slow and no-one really wanted to do anything, and there were other parts where the racing was really hard, so it was tactical,” said Lill.
The men’s race produced a similar scenario as South African Matt Beers and his American teammate, Chris Blevins (Toyota-Specialized-NinetyOne), outplayed the Swiss pair of Nino Schurter and Andri Frischknecht (Scott-Sram) as the race came to its conclusion. Beers, not known as a sprinter, was sent up the road by Blevins. Schurter, in turn, told Frischknecht to follow Beers and sit on his wheel. At the Epic, the winner of the stage is determined by where the second rider in the team finishes. All Schurter had to do was finish third.
Schurter drove hard to give Blevins something to think about, but the American, the 2021 UCI cross-country short track champion, flew past him, leaving the 10-time world champion for dead. Beers and Blevins won by 15 sec with the Swiss pair second and Germany’s Georg Egger and Lukas Baum (Orbea-Leatt), the defending champions, third, two-and-a-half minutes back.
Schurter and Frischknecht hold on to the overall lead from Egger and Baum by 3:15. After Blevins struggled with a stomach bug on Monday, he and Beers lost the yellow jersey they won on Sunday at the prologue and are 7:44 off the lead.
“All we could ask for is a ‘throwaway day’ at the Epic because we would take out yesterday,” said Blevins. “It’s testament to the team believing in us and encouraging us after a bad day yesterday. I had just to stay focused. It was a fun finish for sure.”
“You can’t really pass Adri and Nino who were just drilling it on the single-track. We couldn’t do anything about it. I’m not a good sprinter, so Chris said, ‘Just try to send a flyer,’ and it paid off, similar to last year” said Beers, the 2021 Epic winner.
“We had a little practice last year. I know Matt and if he takes a flyer and gets a gap he’s a hard one to catch. I just sat on Nino’s wheel, ducked out of the win for a while and then jumped across. It worked perfectly,” said Blevins. “[The stage win] is huge. I had a bit of a dip yesterday, but by last night I was feeling confident and sure of myself. There is still a lot of racing left.”
On Wednesday, the Epic leaves Hermanus for a 100km transition stage to Oak Valley with 2,300m of ascent.
The race ends at Val de Vie, between Paarl and Franschhoek, on Sunday.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
Grit helps stitched-up Wakefield and Lill to keep Epic lead
A branch tears open rider’s arm on Monday’s first stage around Hermanus
On Monday, Amy Wakefield took the lead of the Absa Cape Epic held together by grit and sticky tape. On Tuesday’s second stage, her biceps held together by more stitches than she may care to count, Wakefield and her partner, Candice Lill, held on to their lead in the CMcom UCI women’s category with a ride of nous and savvy.
Wakefield’s arm was pierced by a branch on Monday’s first stage around Hermanus after she went a little too close to a tree, slicing her arm so deeply she could see “muscle and fat in the gash”. She patched herself up with duct tape, but required four hours’ surgery on Monday night. Asked about it, she said, “I’m not Superwoman,” only for her SeattleCoffeeCo teammate Lill to disagree: “Yes, you are.”
“It was pretty sore. It is what it is. My body did take a bit of a knock yesterday so we really just had to take it conservatively because I had had surgery for four hours,” said Wakefield. “We rode a bit defensively and wanted to keep in orange [the leader’s jersey], which we did.”
Kim le Court and Vera Looser (Efficient Infiniti Insure), the Mauritius/Namibia pair, took the win on the stage after 116km and 1,850m of climbing around the Overberg, beating defending champion Argentine Sofia Gomez Villafane and her new partner Katerina Nash (NinetyOne-songo-Specialized) in a cleverly crafted sprint move.
Lill and Wakefield were third with the six riders sticking together for the entire day. Looser pulled ahead as they rolled back into Hermanus. She was joined by Le Court and they powered home to take the win by 1.6 sec.
Really hard
Lill and Wakefield retain their 5 min 24 sec gap overall from Villafane and Nash, while Le Court and Looser have 10:40 to make up.
“It was a really long day and all the teams were equally matched today, so it was good racing. There were parts where it was quite slow and no-one really wanted to do anything, and there were other parts where the racing was really hard, so it was tactical,” said Lill.
The men’s race produced a similar scenario as South African Matt Beers and his American teammate, Chris Blevins (Toyota-Specialized-NinetyOne), outplayed the Swiss pair of Nino Schurter and Andri Frischknecht (Scott-Sram) as the race came to its conclusion. Beers, not known as a sprinter, was sent up the road by Blevins. Schurter, in turn, told Frischknecht to follow Beers and sit on his wheel. At the Epic, the winner of the stage is determined by where the second rider in the team finishes. All Schurter had to do was finish third.
Schurter drove hard to give Blevins something to think about, but the American, the 2021 UCI cross-country short track champion, flew past him, leaving the 10-time world champion for dead. Beers and Blevins won by 15 sec with the Swiss pair second and Germany’s Georg Egger and Lukas Baum (Orbea-Leatt), the defending champions, third, two-and-a-half minutes back.
Schurter and Frischknecht hold on to the overall lead from Egger and Baum by 3:15. After Blevins struggled with a stomach bug on Monday, he and Beers lost the yellow jersey they won on Sunday at the prologue and are 7:44 off the lead.
“All we could ask for is a ‘throwaway day’ at the Epic because we would take out yesterday,” said Blevins. “It’s testament to the team believing in us and encouraging us after a bad day yesterday. I had just to stay focused. It was a fun finish for sure.”
“You can’t really pass Adri and Nino who were just drilling it on the single-track. We couldn’t do anything about it. I’m not a good sprinter, so Chris said, ‘Just try to send a flyer,’ and it paid off, similar to last year” said Beers, the 2021 Epic winner.
“We had a little practice last year. I know Matt and if he takes a flyer and gets a gap he’s a hard one to catch. I just sat on Nino’s wheel, ducked out of the win for a while and then jumped across. It worked perfectly,” said Blevins. “[The stage win] is huge. I had a bit of a dip yesterday, but by last night I was feeling confident and sure of myself. There is still a lot of racing left.”
On Wednesday, the Epic leaves Hermanus for a 100km transition stage to Oak Valley with 2,300m of ascent.
The race ends at Val de Vie, between Paarl and Franschhoek, on Sunday.
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