The Pick 'n Pay 94.7 Cycle Challenge, an annual event held in
Johannesburg, South Africa, was won by Slovakian youngster Martin
Velits on Sunday.
Velits, 21, won the 94-km event in two hours, 19 minutes and 30
seconds around the closed streets of Johannesburg from a small
breakaway group that contained most of the race favorites.
The deciding move of the day came after a mere 10 kms of racing,
along the M1 south motorway, the SAPA news agency reported.
A group of 11 riders went clear of the bunch, containing Malcolm
Lange, Daryl Impey, Nic White and Daniel Spence of Team Microsoft,
Ryan Cox, James Perry and Felix Cardenas of Team Barloworld, Hanco
Kachelhoffer and Adrian Maaske of Team Exel, John Paul Pearton of
Wits cycling club and Velits.
There was a distinctly international flavor to this breakaway
group, which soon had a lead of one minute 20 seconds over the rest
of the field.
Cardenas, from Colombia, has previously won major races in
Europe including the King of the mountains competition in the Tour
of Spain. Velits is also the current U-23 National Champion of
Slovakia.
The biggest action came after 60 kms of racing where a flurry of
attacks reduced the group to five, but Velits and Cardenas managed
to claw their way back to the front.
The leaders went to the finish with just eight riders where
Barloworld was the most aggressive, using Perry and Cox to set
Cardenas up for a win on the final 1.6 km hill before the finish
line.
The talented Velits used the situation to his advantage to
produce a well timed attack and catch everybody by surprise to win
the event. Hanco Kachelhoffer of Exel was second best followed by
Cardenas of Barloworld and Microsoft's Daryl Impey only managing
fourth.
Velits happens to be the boyfriend of Yolandi Du Toit who rides
for the same team and in the women's category, Du Toit managed to
surprise the favorites to win the women's event.
(Xinhua News Agency November 20, 2006)