SCOTT-SRAM’s Nino Schurter and Lars Forster clinched the overall Cape Epic title after finishing the Grand Finale safely at the Val de Vie Estate in the Western Cape today.
The pair were the front-runners throughout the week after winning the prologue in Cape Town last Sunday.
SCOTT-SRAM’s Lars Forster (left) and Nino Schurter clinched the overall Cape Epic title after finishing the Grand Finale safely at the Val de Vie Estate today. Photo: Shaun Roy/Cape Epic
They won four of the eight stages, but were always within the top two teams on the general classification.
The Swiss pair were made to sweat after losing six-and-a-half minutes in stage three due to a crucial mechanical.
However they slowly began to chip away at the lead of their closest rivals, Cannondale Factory Racing’s Manule Fumic and Henrique Avancini over the following two stages to regain their lead.
Schurter and Forster finished 14th in the final stage today, but it was good enough to secure the overall title.
Their main objective was to arrive safely at the finish line and this was evident when they rode with their back-up team, DSV-SCOTT-SRAM’s Gert Heyns and Andri Frischknecht, throughout the finale.
“This was a really special victory,” Schurter said while he and Forster sipped on their Espresso martinis after today’s stage. “It is a really tough race and you need a lot of good luck as well as a strong team.
“We’re super stoked with it, definitely.”
Comparing his victory to when he won it in 2017 alongside Matthias Stirnemann, Schurter said: “This year we were expected to win. We really wanted to go for the win.
“But in the first one [in 2017] we had a lot of good luck and we went along nicely through the week. We didn’t really expect it. It was special, but when you go into a race wanting to win then it’s different.”
Forster, in his first shot at the Epic, said he began to tire in the last two stages.
“Yesterday I suffered and today I suffered more, but I was able to hold onto the pace. We were still riding quite fast, I think, but the other teams just kept riding away.
“Luckily I had a strong horse with me [Schurter] who still had some power in the engine. But I’m very happy we did it.”
The final stage offered something of a tussle between Kross-Spur’s Sergio Mantecon Gutierrez and Ondrej Cink and the South African pair of PYGA Euro Steel’s Matthys Beukes and Philip Buys.
The two teams broke away just after Jonkershoek, about a third of the way into the 70km race, before the final sprint to the line.
After playing a game of cat and mouse when they entered the Val de Vie Estate and after the lead had kept changing hands, Gutierrez and Cink managed to pip Beukes and Buys by a millisecond at the end.
There was some conversation between Cink and Buys before the latter part of the race and when asked what that was about the Czech replied: “We said we’d work together and end off in a sprint.
“I’m so happy that Sergio managed to win the sprint.”
Gutierrez added that this finale victory was important for them, the team and their sponsors.
“It was super important after we lost out in this race after all the mechanical problems we suffered on the second day.
“We were forced to change our tactics and strategy. We were very focused on a stage win and then finally on the last day we did it.
“For us it was very special.”
Schurter and Forster won the Epic with a final GC time of 26:09:45, just over seven-and-a-half minutes clear of Fumic and Avancini in second.
