Italians Samuele Porro and Damiano Ferraro moved into third overall after winning the fourth stage of the 2016 Absa Cape Epic in Wellington today.
The Trek-Selle San Marco team completed the 75km stage in 3:06.49, with the all-German Bulls 2 pairing of Simon Stiebjahn and Tim Boehme second and the Dutch CST Superior team of Rudi van Houts and Hans Becking third.
Samuele Porro and Damiano Ferraro won the fourth stage of the 2016 Absa Cape Epic in Wellington today. Photo: Shaun Roy/Sportzpics
The Bulls’s Karl Platt and Urs Huber still head the general classification ahead of Centurion Vaude by Meerendal 2’s Nicola Rohrbach and Matthias Pfrommer.
It seems nothing but a run of bad luck can now stop the Bulls, and Platt from securing a record-equalling fifth title. With three stages left, they will no doubt ride defensively to be in the yellow zebra jersey at the finish at Meerendal on Sunday.
Platt said that everything had gone according to plan on another tough stage.
“The Epic is never easy especially today with lots of climbs. We were going up and down all day, but there was a lot of single-track too.”
In the women’s race, only five seconds separated Spur-Specialized’s Annika Langvad and Ariane Kleinhans from Sport for Good’s Yana Belomiona and Sabine Spitz.
“Today was slightly less painful,” Kleinhans said before revealing that Langvad was the main protagonist in the days final act.
“Annika is such a great partner. Today’s stage was really about teamwork and she was really awesome and made the difference when we dropped Topeak Ergon. Coming into the finish, which was a little bit different to yesterday, she was motor-pacing me.”
For more news and results, go to Cape Epic.
Annika Langvad (left) and Ariane Kleinhans of Team Spur-Specialized en route to winning the fourth stage of the 2016 Absa Cape Epic in Wellington today. Photo: Mark Sampson/Sportzpics
