Momentum Medical Scheme Tankwa Trek presented by Biogen - Stage 2 - Highlights

Stage 2 of the Momentum Medical Scheme Tankwa Trek presented by Biogen saw the UCI men’s and women’s lead change hands. CST PostNL Bafang and Faces CST started the day in the yellow and pink First Ascent leaders’ jerseys on Friday morning. Four hours later the Bulls Heroes and Fairtree were in possession of the coveted garments after a dramatic 84 kilometres of racing. Having lost nearly 30 minutes on the opening stage, with a broken chainring, Cannondale Factory Racing were eager to make amends on Stage 2. Henrique Avancini and Manuel Fumic set the pace from the gun and soon stretched the elite men’s field. As they were no risk to the overall title the CST PostNL Bafang team, of Sebastian Fini and David Nordemann were content to let Cannondale Factory Racing have free reign. Huber and Stiebjahn’s stage win was emphatic, but it soon emerged that the stage result was only half of the story. When Fini and Nordemann outsprinted Tristan de Lange and Alexander Miller for second, they stopped the clock 1 minute and 2 seconds down on the stage winners. That left the Bulls Heroes and CST PostNL Bafang tied on 4 hours, 14 minutes and 39 seconds. A count back revealed that only seventy-five thousandths of a second separated the new yellow jersey wearers from the old. In the women’s race, the change of lead was far clearer cut. Candice Lill and Mariske Strauss were put under pressure in the Witzenberg Valley by Fairtree’s Nadine Rieder. The tall German ratcheted up the pace on the day’s most significant climb, a 10-kilometre-long ascent to the ridgeline which separates the Valley from Tulbagh to the west. The Fairtree team were followed across the line by dormakaba blue’s Robyn de Groot and Adelheid Morath. They finished 3 minutes and 7 seconds behind the stage winners and moved up to third overall. Strauss and Lill, of Faces CST, finished third on the stage, dropping one general classification position to second.

Results Stage 2

Men
1. Team Bulls Heroes: Urs Huber & Simon Stiebjahn (03:19:23)
2. CST PostNL Bafang: Sebastian Fini & David Nordemann (03:20:25 | +01:02)
3. DANSTE Racing/Megatech: Tristan de Lange & Alexander Miller (03:20:33 | +01:10)

Women
1. Fairtree: Jennie Stenerhag & Nadine Rieder (03:50:56)
2. dormakaba blue: Robyn de Groot & Adelheid Morath (03:54:03 | +03:07)
3. Faces CST: Mariske Strauss & Candice Lill (03:55:06 | +04:10)