Starting with the elite men’s division, top cyclist Anriette Schoeman (Team Proline Computers) showed true form to win the women’s elite division of the Diamond Ice EP Club Championships on Sunday.
Schoeman, who is still on the mend after breaking her arm when she was forced off the road by a car last year, narrowly avoided a 15-bicycle catastrophe to speed on to victory.
Top competitors applied pedal power to close the gap after John–Lee Augustyn (Team Barlow World) and Clinton Barrow (Coimbra Cycles) launched a vicious attack within the first 3km of the 60km race.
But Augustyn and Barrow quickly opened a time-gap of 30 seconds after 10km, and they applied even more pressure to open the gap to 1min 40 sec, when disaster struck as Augustyn experienced a sudden flat wheel, and no team support meant the end of his race.
Riding on his own, Barrow increased the gap up to 2 minutes at the 39km mark, but then the chasing bunch, including the Schoeman and Charlotte van der Merwe (Coimbra Cycles), started to increase their pace.
The higher pace proved too much for Van der Merwe, who was left behind 49km into the race, leaving Schoeman as the only lady in the chasing bunch.
Schoeman finished as first lady in for a well-deserved time of 1.35.41, representing an exceptional seventh overall position, with Van der Merwe finishing second, and Nicole Allan (NMMU) in third place.
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