Pieter Seyffert said he was honoured to have been appointed captain of the ProTouch Continental team from next year, having been on the brink of announcing his retirement.
Seyffert, who turns 32 next month, said he was considering retiring at the end of this year but his call-up to take on a leadership role within a Continental outfit had made him put those plans on hold.
“When the ProTouch guys told me they were going Continental I thought I should just stick it out for one more year,” Seyffert told In the Bunch today.
“Racing Continental means we will be participating in many international events, especially in African tours. Our main goal is to get South Africa back to number one on the UCI Africa Tour rankings.
“It was a big honour to be called up as captain.”
Pieter Seyffert (pictured) said he was honoured to have been appointed captain of the ProTouch Continental team from next year, having been on the brink of announcing his retirement. Photo: Supplied
Seyffert said he had worked with the team’s sport director, Tony Harding, for “pretty much my whole cycling career” and had been involved with ProTouch for the past two years.
He felt his experience contributed to his being appointed captain.
“I would say I’m one of the more seasoned riders in the team and I’ve ridden for Continental teams before.
“I’ve won stages in international races, so from an experience point of view I think that’s why I got selected.”
The Johannesburg local rode for the Konica Minolta Continental team between 2007 and 2009, but in recent years has largely been prominent in mountain-biking.
He will now make a return to the tarmac, but he wasn’t fazed by the re-adjustment.
“I’ve never had a problem with doing both mountain-biking and road cycling. I started off on the road so it will maybe be good to finish there.
“I won the jersey for being the most versatile rider at the Le Coq [Sportif Cycling] Tour a few years ago, which was a combined contest between a mountain-bike race and road stage race.”
The Le Coq event comprised a three-day mountain-bike stage race and a five-day road stage race and took place around the Pretoria and Rustenburg area.
Despite the team’s main general classification contender from this season, Gustav Basson, having departed to the TEG Procycling Continental side, Seyffert felt the team still had the personnel to be strong contenders.
“We’ve just announced that Rohan du Plooy will be coming across to us, as well as young Mornay van Heerden, who just spent some time racing in Spain.
“Mornay will go well on the climbs and Rohan is a big guy with a lot of power and he could assist us well in the flatter and sprinting tours.
“Songezo Jim also joined us, who used to once ride for the DiData WorldTour team [in 2016]. He will bring a lot of experience and BMT [big match temperament] to the team.”
Seyffert said the team would often race the international and local calendars simultaneously, which meant they would have to divide their resources accordingly.
“We will, for instance, send a climbing-specific team to the Tour of Tunisia, which takes place the same time as the Tour of Good Hope [in March next year].
“In that situation we would have guys like Reynard Butler, Rohan and me taking part in the Cape Town Cycle Tour and Tour of Good Hope – the riders who do well on the flat and rolling courses – while sending our climbers to Tunisia.”
The new Continental outfit will compete in their first official race at the Mpumalanga Tour from January 11 to 17, before taking on their first UCI event at the Tour du Rwanda from February 24 to March 3.
