Professional mountain biker and Garmin Brand Ambassador Yolandi du Toit was in action at both the Garmin G-Tribe and Bestmed Campus2Campus SuperClassic.
Garmin rider Yolandi du Toit (centre) was all smiles after winning the Bestmed Campus2Campus SuperClassic in Potchefstroom on Sunday. With her are runner-up Juanita Venter (left) and third-placed Carla van der Merwe, both of Bestmed-ASG. Photo: Mario van de Wall
My weekend started off with the Garmin G-Tribe event on September 27. It was the second event in the G-Tribe series and was held at Rietvlei Zoo, a family friendly activity park in Alberton.
The goal of the Garmin G-Tribe series is to introduce ladies to different sport activities and to create an environment in which they feel comfortable to practise their chosen discipline.
The venue was chosen as it catered for all the various activities Garmin had on offer for the day. These activities included mountain biking, golf, running, adventure bootcamp and cross training, with each activity being managed by Garmin’s Brand Ambassadors.
This meant I led the mountain biking section and presented a skills clinic in the morning followed by a 20km race at noon. This sequence worked out very well as ladies got to learn and practise skills in the morning and apply what they had learned in the afternoon’s race.
I had a great bunch of ladies joining me and their company along with Rietvlei’s splendid trails made for a wonderful day out. I hope to see all of you again at the next G-Tribe event!
On Sunday morning my alarm went off at 3.30am as I had to make my way to the 7am start of the Campus2Campus Super Classic road race in Potchefstroom.
At first I had no racing scheduled for the weekend as all my attention was on the Garmin G-Tribe event. When my father asked me to come and join him at the race, it meant a quick change of plans.
He competes in the master’s category and at most road races, this one included, the masters and ladies start together. This is done to make the racing more positive and although we compete against each other, our results are taken per category.
A day out racing alongside my dad reminded me of my teenage years when the two of us travelled ‘the world’ (when you’re young your country feels like the whole world) together to compete at road races, so I couldn’t let this opportunity slip by. The idea was to use this race as preparation for Mankele 3 Towers taking place this coming weekend while also spending time with my father.
The 10th edition of the Campus2Campus welcomed a new route to the event. The 107km distance took us on an out and back course from Potchefstroom to Parys. I know the road quite well as I used to spend a lot of training hours on it whilst studying at Potchefstroom and it definitely counts in ones favour to know a race route. What I didn’t count on was the howling wind that would terrorise us throughout the day’s racing.
I secured the ladies victory on the day. I was quite overwhelmed by the result as I didn’t expect to have good legs on the day, never mind winning the event. Juanita Venter who was recently crowned the World Time Trail Champion in her age group finished in second place with her Bestmed-ASG teammate Carla Oberholzer rounding out the podium in third.
