Beers flies SA flag in Cape Epic victory with Grotts

SA’s Matthew Beers completed his third Absa Cape Epic win with US partner Howard Grotts, the Toyota-Specialised-NinetyOne pairing placing third in the eighth, Grand Finale stage in Stellenbosch and well within the time required for  overall victory.

The Ghost Factory Racing team of Anne Terpstra of the Netherlands and Nicole Koller of Switzerland took a clean sweep winning their eighth straight stage on Sunday for a convincing overall victory in the women’s race.

Beers and Grotts rode within themselves across the hills and steep climbs and through the tight tracks through Cape fynbos and wine estates around Stellenbosch, finishing in 2hr 55min 16sec, which was 3min 08sec off the leaders.

The final stage was won by the Bulls Mavericks team of Simon Schneller and Urs Huber (2:52:08), with the Wilier Vittoria Factory team of Fabian Rabensteiner and Samuele Porro in second place in 2:54:24, 2min 16sec behind the victors.

The World Bicycle Relief team of Nino Schurter (Switzerland) and Sebastian Fini (Denmark) began and ended the day in second place.

Their fifth-place finish (2:57:01) at Stellenbosch University’s Coetzenburg Athletics Stadium saw the gap with Beers and Grotts extended from 2 min 57 sec at the start of the stage to the 11 min 7 sec.

Beers, 30, added to the titles he won with Jordan Sarrou of France in 2021 and American Christopher Blevins in 2023.

Grotts said they had “played it safe”, taking no risks in the final stage and ensuring the overall victory.

Beers revealed he had a stomach bug and battled to sleep on Saturday night, which made the last stage his toughest.

“Today Howard was herding me pretty close. I went pretty hard in the beginning on that first climb. I emptied myself just to get the group as full as we could and from there I just hung on,” he said.

Ghost Factory’s domination of the women’s race was not unchallenged.

Cannondale Factory Racing’s Mona Mitterwallner of Austria and SA’s Candice Lill stuck to the leaders like glue for the first seven stages, meaning there was just a 3:51 gap going into the last leg.

But any dramatic final-day push to close that margin was put to bed as Terpstra and Koller opened a commanding lead on Sunday.

They won the stage in 3:32:07, with Cannondale 4:45 behind in 3:36:52.

Ghost Factory's final overall lead margin was a commanding 8:36.

The third-placed overall Toyota-Specialized-NinetyOne pairing of Sofia Gomez Villafañe and Samara Sheppard had an off final stage, ending in fourth place on Sunday (3:46:00), 13:53 off the leaders.

Efficient Infiniti SCB SRAM’s Vera Looser and Alexis Skarda — the fifth-placed overall women’s finishers, had a strong final day with their third-place finish (3:40:09), 8:02 behind the leaders.

Koller said Ghost Factory’s win was a team effort.

“It’s hard work for everybody. You would say three people as support staff for two riders is a lot, but in a race like this it’s not because there are so many things to do, like logistics and all the small things that add up,” she said.

“That’s why it’s even nicer to see them at the finish line and to celebrate because it’s a real team effort.”