The South African Champs will be held in and around Nelspruit - and the road race features a quite interesting 155km parcours of three laps:
being rated as flat - thanks to the climbs being rather easy and far from steep - the profile still looks like a challenging one. So both sprinters and puncheurs may fance their chances.
Local team MTN (8 riders, Day as the possible leader) will be the most dominant team, obviously. The biggest names (Van Heerden, Hoffman, Impey/Augustyn) may have to rely on this team's work.
The first attempt 10km into the race is a solo move by Venter (Gazelle)! No one else tries to follow, so he faces a long day alone in the rain.
Well, not really - it stopped raining! Venter though was allowed to go for a decent gap, but the race ain't over yet:
MTN knows what to do : having no rider in the break plus having the strongest team in numbers makes them taking control of the pace and limit the gap to 4 minutes halfway through the race!
One of the top-favorites now tries to benefit from MTN's work in the chase and attacks the bunch with still 44km to go and the gap to solo-leader Venter being down to about 2 minutes:
Augustyn (Aker) makes his move, quickly followed by
Day (MTN), who's going surprisingly early for a sprinter!
It seems to be the crucial move, as also Hoffman (Metinvest) and Janse Van Rensburg (Wikipedia) jumped behind immediately!
It's still the same climb and it's van Rensburg, who drops Hoffman/Day and tries to hang on with Augustyn now!
20km to go and both Augustyn and van Rensburg managed to catch up to early escapee Venter.
32" behind the sprinter-duo Hoffman/Day is still fighting to do the same and the now flat sector may help them..
Just as the duo caught up to make it a 5-men-group in a comfortable lead (as MTN obviously stopped pulling the peloton), we see another attack:
Vesper and Augustyn won't give Hoffman and Day an easy time (for obvious reasons) and try to escape with 9km remaining!
Empty-handed though, as the three others pulled them back quickly. 6km before finish and it looks like we will see a sprint-decision between those 5 riders!
Yes, we will and that's good news for the two sprinters Day and Hoffman!
The latter with even more good news now, as Day is in the worst position to kick the sprint off with now top-favorite Hoffman right behind at his wheel..
..which is two good news too much to prevent Nolan Hoffman from winning this road race in style! Dominating sprint finish by Hoffman, who had a stellar season in 2013!
Venter even managed to grab 2nd after a tough day, with Day completing the podium in a really interesting and thrilling race.
South African Champs will be held in and around Nelspruit - and the road race features a quite interesting 155km parcours of three laps:
