Nicol Carstens, who placed second in the African leaders’ jersey competition at last year’s Cape Epic, will shift his focus to the MTB Marathon World Champs following the cancellation of the eight-day mountain bike event.
Nicol Carstens will shift his focus to the MTB Marathon World Champs following the cancellation of the Cape Epic. Photo: Max Sullivan
The Epic, scheduled to start today, was called off on Friday evening due to fears of the coronavirus spreading.
Carstens said Epic was his second biggest objective for the season, with the world marathon champs, which take place in Turkey in October, being his main goal.
“Hopefully world champs goes on as planned and I can just move my focus to that.”
Regarding hearing news of the cancellation, Carstens said it was probably for the best.
“I would have loved to race, but knowing the Epic they definitely would have done their homework and made the call based on what’s best for everyone,” said Carstens, who was to have raced alongside Marco Joubert under the Imbuko Giant Pro Cycling banner.
He added that the whole team were set and ready to try and win the Burry Stander memorial trophy.
“Months of hard work went into this and we were all super excited.
“Epic is a career-defining race. It’s one of the few races where we can prove that we’re good enough to mix it with the world’s best.”
Carstens said fortunately they now had the opportunity to spend time as a team, training and bonding.
“We’re still going to use all the resources we had allocated for the Epic.
“As professional cyclists it is always expected of us to be on our best possible form, so I’m really happy with where my form is at the moment and I’m going to try and build on it now.”
As to his plans for the rest of the year, he said everyone was in the dark and did not know what impact the virus would have going forward.
“Other races might also get cancelled, but for now I’ll just keep on training and focusing on getting even better.”
