Steven van Heerden left it late to clinch the SA National Omnium Championships title in Cape Town today, with the final event, the points race, being his saving grace.
Van Heerden re-affirmed his status as arguably the best track points cyclist in Africa, after having won the event earlier this week, as well as in last year’s national champs.
Steven van Heerden (pictured) left it late to clinch the SA National Ominum Champs title at the Bellville Velodrome today. Photo: Owen Lloyd
However, with David Maree having been the Omnium title holder, Van Heerden knew he had his work cut out for him.
“From the start David and I scored quite well. I was about 14 points behind David, though, going into the points race, so it all came down to that,” Van Heerden told In the Bunch today.
“I just managed to sneak him and go ahead.”
The Omnium required riders to take part in four track events: the scratch, tempo, elimination and points.
Each rider gathered points in the respective races based on their positions in each. The total amount of points accumulated after the four events decided the final standings.
Van Heerden had not managed to win the other races, but did enough on the final event to take the overall spoils.
“I managed to lap the bunch quite early and after that I moved up a bit.
“Later on, Nolan [Hoffman], David and I took another lap and we managed to secure our top three places overall,” he said, with Hoffman placing third.
“Gert [Fouche] also played his role throughout the omnium, but unfortunately he had to catch a flight back home so he couldn’t take part in the last race.”
Maree won the scratch race, Fouche the tempo and Hoffman the elimination.
Van Heerden finished third in the scratch race, second in the tempo and placed “somewhere in the middle of the bunch” in the elimination.
“I lost quite a bit of points in the elimination,” he said, emphasizing the importance of his result in the fourth and final event.
He described the day as having been “long” after what was a taxing week on the track.
“Everyone was a bit tired; you could see when the guys warmed up as well – they weren’t too dedicated or eager.
“It was a long and hard day of fast racing; we only finished at 3pm.”
The 25-year-old was pushed on the day, he added.
“I was impressed with the competition, especially with how hard we needed to go to secure everything. It was a big challenge.”
The Johannesburg local said he will now take some time off the bike, before beginning his training for next season where he will be riding on the road for the newly-introduced Vandergroup Continental team.
