Stuart Marais leads Brendan van Eeden (pictured second here), eventual winner Tyronne White (pictured in third place) and Michael Foster (pictured third), who ended up in third position, at the recent Illovo Eston Trail Challenge.
Photo:
Anthony Grote
Quattro ROAG Series: Big guns aiming for the Champagne
This weekend’s event is the fifth event of the prestigious Quattro ROAG Series and is also the final physical event.
Stuart Marais leads Brendan van Eeden (pictured second here), eventual winner Tyronne White (pictured in third place) and Michael Foster (pictured third), who ended up in third position, at the recent Illovo Eston Trail Challenge.
Photo:
Anthony Grote
Quattro ROAG Series: The big guns of KZN mountain biking will be in the Drakensberg this weekend and ready to fire in the final head-to-head battle of the year at the Central Berg Trail Running and MTB Challenge powered by Momentum.
The two-day event takes place at the picturesque Champagne Sports Resort in the Cathkin Valley and gives the province’s top mountain bikers and trail runners a chance for a final physical race before many take a break in preparation for their 2022 seasons.
Champagne awaits Quattro ROAG Series
This weekend’s event is the fifth event of the prestigious Quattro ROAG Series powered by Momentum and is also the final physical event in the race to claim the biggest prizefund for any trail running and MTB series in the country. On Saturday trail runners in the series have a choice between a 7,5km and 15km, while there is also a non-series 20km for the hardcore runners, and mountain bikers will ride either a 20km or a 40km on Sunday.
On the mountain biking side, Stuart Marais will be hoping to extend Team type{DEV} NanoTime’s recent run of successes that saw an overall victory for Matt Beers and some great TV time for Tristan de Lange on the final day of the Cape Epic. Locally, Marais has been flying the team’s flag high all year with some impressive victories, but will be out for revenge after Tyronne White snatched a sprint win at the recent Illovo Eston Challenge.
White (DriveTrain Academy) has not been at peak form for much of this disrupted season, but his win in Eston proves the old adage that form is temporary and class is permanent, and he will always be a threat and may be even start as a marginal favourite on Sunday.
Two of the younger riders who blasted onto the scene in 2020, Brendan van Eeden (VNQSH) and Michael Foster (Tipping Point Coaching), have not been able to impose themselves on the old guard this year, but they have always been very much in contention and there is no doubt there is a change looming in the not-to-distant future.
In the wome’s races this year, Rouxda Grobler (DriveTrain Academy) has surprisingly been in a class of one. With a growing string of victories she is without doubt the in-form rider to beat. However, the equivalent star of 2020, Christie Hearder (Absolute Motion), has recently enjoyed a bit of a break from the training and it will be interesting to see if she can re-assert her dominance after her rest.
Sanchia Malan (Index) and Hayley Smith (Bell) have been chasing Grobler this season and are sure to be contenders for podium places once again this weekend in a race that is going to suit the stronger climbers.
In the trail running, Nokukhanya Memela will start as favourite in the women’s race after she ousted Sarah Gray from the top step of the podium at Eston and Karkloof. Before those two back-to-back victories, Gray was looking like once again dominating the Quattro ROAG Series powered by Momentum. However, Memela’s two wins in successive weekends means she could now do enough to surge into the series lead and oust multiple winner Gray from the overall title.
The 15km men’s trail running is far less cut and dried with different winners for each event this season so it is hard to predict a winner, but Brett Gray and Nomore Mandivengerei look like being the marginal favourites.
