German Manuel Fumic and Brazilian Henrique Avancini of Cannondale Factory Racing won the 26km prologue of the 2017 Cape Epic at Meerendal Wine Estate outside Durbanville in the Western Cape today.
Manuel Fumic and Henrique Avancini of Cannondale Factory Racing celebrate after their prologue win in the Cape Epic at Meerendal Wine Estate today. Photo: Cape Epic
“We came here well prepared and really relaxed,” said Fumic, who won the final stage last year.
“We went in with the right approach I would say and in the end the training and preparation paid off. I’m really happy about our performance and that we took the win.”
Fumic and Avancini completed the course, which included 750m of climbing, in 1:01:52 to beat world and Olympic champion Nino Schurter and Matthias Stirnemann of Scott-Sram (1:03:28) by more than a minute and a half.
Avancini echoed Fumic’s thoughts in terms of preparation.
“Of course the shorter stages suit us better, but we are in good shape. We want to fight for the overall and try our best.
“Tomorrow of course is a different race, but today was a short one, but a really hard one with the conditions of the heat and dust. We did quite well and we are feeling good.”
Third were Alexey Medvedev and Samuele Porro of Trek-Selle San Marco, who stopped the clock on 1:03:35.
South Africa’s Robyn de Groot and Germany’s former Olympic champion Sabine Spitz finished the prologue in 1:15:26 to take the honours in the women’s race.
Robyn de Groot and Sabine Spitz of Ascendis Health won the prologue of the Cape Epic at Meerendal Wine Estate today to take the lead in the women’s section. Photo: Cape Epic
De Groot, the national marathon champion, said the stage went smoothly and she was happy with the way the race started for them.
“When things go well you have to capitalise. We’ve got seven more days and there are a lot of ups and downs,” said the rider from Ascendis Health.
“I learnt that I can dig deeper than I like to. Sabine started really hard and I really had to vasbyt the first half.
“So yeah, it turned out well.”
Esther Süss and Jennie Stenerhag of Meerendal CBC were second in 1:16:05 with Mariska Strauss and Annie Last of Hansgrohe-Cadence OMX third in 1:17:15.
The #ConquerAsOne moment for the 2017 Prologue went to riders, Freddy Meyer and Neil Fourie.
Check out more prologue results.
