Welcome to the combined African championships, where the major question appears to be who can stop Rapha from winning almost every single jersey on offer? They have two teams here making up 12 of the 17 riders in the field. Here is the startlist:
Spoiler
Vesuvio
1. M. Samwel
Rapha Condor
11. Z. Ndbri
12. C. Abdallah
13. A. Bakari
14. N. Berhane
15. Y. Reguigui
16. E. Van Wyk
Red Bull
21. A. Jelloul
UBS
31. R. Chtioui
Spyker
41. D. Teklehaimanot
Rapha Condor
51. A. Belmokhtar
52. C. Anguilet
53. T. Grmay
54. M. Hussein
55. H. Kiprotich
56. T. Teklit
AMEX
61. M. Hasnaoui
A lot of different nations will have their NC decided here and this is a list of who is competing against whom: Tunisia Chtioui Hasnaoui Morocco Jelloul Algeria Reguigui Belmokhtar Egypt Abdallah Eritrea Berhane Teklehaimanot Teklit Ethiopia Grmay Gabon Bakari Anguilet Kenya Samwel Ndbri Hussein Kiprotich Namibia Van Wyk
Already, as long as the finish, we can confirm that Jelloul, Abdallah, Grmay and Van Wyk will wear their national champion colours next season.
So on to the start of the race. The course is 152km long and has two climbs on it, one of which goes over 10% in gradient but neither of which is longer than a few hundred metres. Rapha’s colours are the first things noticed when you look at the peloton – they are absolutely everywhere.
The first attack comes from Anguillet of Gabon.
Abdallah decides to follow, despite the fact that he is already guaranteed to win his race. Perhaps he wants to win it with some panache. Regardless, the road spikes up to 10% and both of them are caught by the peloton.
The next attack comes from Hasnaoui and Anguilet.
This is much more successful and they are both able to get away and establish themselves as the break. Given the tiny peloton this is a great situation to be in.
The constant climbing takes its toll as a couple of riders fall backwards – Reguigui and Chtioui. Belmokhtar will be happy to see that he is now the only Algerian in the peloton and Hasnaoui only has to beat Chtioui in this race to take home the Tunisian jersey, so his gap will be more than sufficient.
Chtioui gets back in the peloton, however. Meanwhile a few more names are dropped as the race progresses, including pretty much every non-Rapha rider, but they all get back in to the pack, as does Reguigui.
With 40km remaining the gap has ballooned to over 10 minutes, meaning that both Tunisia and Gabon are decided. The two leaders will sprint it out for the glory of winning this race, however.
Not every race is decided, however, and Samwel attacks away on the uphill. He prefers the mountains much more than these sharp climbs, but he is still of a much higher class than most of the riders here.
Now is where the Rapha advantage in numbers comes, as Van Wyk brings him back for Ndbri. The Namibian is influencing the results of the Kenyan race.
Now 5 riders are dropped, all from Rapha. They are Reguigui, Belmokhtar, Kiprotich, Hussein and Bakari. This has the following implications for the various jerseys:
Reguigui and Belmokhtar will continue to fight for the Algerian jersey.
Only Samwell and Ndbri are left to fight for the Kenyan jersey.
Bakari was out of competition for the jersey of Gabon anyway.
With 20km remaining, Samwel attacks uphill again, and he is followed by Ndbri and Jelloul.
Ndbri is putting up a big fight against Samwel. Jelloul has already won his jersey, so he is just stretching the legs really.
This time it is Teklehaimanot who brings everything back and in the process he drops his competitor Berhane, as well as the only Egyptian Abdallah. Only Teklit is left to compete against Teklehaimanot for the Eritrean jersey.
Again Samwel tries and he is followed by the same two riders as well as Teklit!
Once again Teklehaimanot pulls it back, as he can’t allow Teklit to get away.
But that doesn’t stop the same four trying yet again!
And again Teklehaimanot pulls it all back together. It is going to come down to a sprint.
Up front Anguilet takes the sprint win against Hasnaoui, but both of them will be national champions next year.
Jelloul wins in the bunch sprint. Samwel is right behind him, beating Ndbri to take the jersey of Kenya. Finally, Teklehaimanot loses in a sprint against Teklit, who becomes the new Eritrean champion. Further, Belmokhtar succeeds in dropping Reguigui on the run in and is the new champion of Algeria.
So out of this here are the new champions from each of the countries in competition here:
Tunisia Hasnaoui Morocco Jelloul Algeria Belmokhtar Egypt Abdallah Eritrea Teklit Ethiopia Grmay Gabon Anguilet Kenya Samwel Namibia Van Wyk
Now we have the African TT championships. As in the previous race Jelloul, Abdallah, Grmay and Van Wyk will wear their TT national jerseys throughout the season.
Tunisia
Chtioui faces off against Hasnaoui. The later rider caused the upset in the RR but Chtioui is heavily favoured here. And indeed he comes through with a time of 1h01’55”, winning by almost 2 minutes.
Algeria
Reguigui struggled a lot in the road race, which was won by Belmokhtar. Both are fairly well-matched TT riders and through the first check their times are almost the same. However, Reguigui struggles with the distance and he is beaten by 30 seconds. Belmokhtar will thus be the double Algerian champion once again.
Eritrea
There was quite a tough fight for the Eritrean RR jersey. The three riders who are competing here again are Berhane, Teklehaimanot and Teklit. Though Teklehaimanot isn’t known as a TT rider he does manage to deliver the goods today and will wear at least one national champion jersey next year. He wins by about a minute.
Gabon
Anguilet won the RR in the break over Bakari and is strongly favoured to do the double today. His time of 1h4’57” is hardly inspiring but it proves to be more than a minute better than Bakari. Anguilet is thus double national champion.
Kenya
The final contested TT of this year is Kenya, with 4 contestants. Hussein won this last year and proves to once again be the best today winning by over a minute.
