With the curtain having been drawn on a successful African Continental Road Championships, attention now shifts indoors to the track equivalent in Cairo, Egypt. Photo: Supplied
With the curtain having been drawn on a highly successful African Continental Road Championships, attention now shifts indoors to the track equivalent in Cairo, Egypt.
A number of South African riders will be on “double duty” including Jason Bruintjies who was part of the junior men’s road team.
The 17-year-old Capetonian has a full programme of events scheduled for March 10 to 13 track championships as the best of the best have assembled in the North African country.
Bruintjies expressed mixed feelings when first seeing the track.
“It will definitely be the best track I will have ridden on and the first time I’ve been on a wooden track so it’s a new experience for me.
“But it’s very dusty and not very well maintained.
“The UCI were here yesterday and instructed the organisers to clean it.
“As a result we weren’t able to practice on it, but I hope to do so today ahead of the start of the racing on Wednesday,” Bruintjies confirmed.
South Africa have six junior men in Cairo with three taking part in the endurance races and three in the sprints.
Bruintjies along with Chanton Perrins and Joshua Dike will tackle the endurance races, while James Swart, Bradley Bosman and Rudolf Labuschagne will be on sprint duty.
Following a number of withdrawals, Bruintjies will be kept busy over the four-day event.
“The events I will be doing are the scratch race, points race, elimination, madison, omnium and team pursuit.
“I will be doing everything basically except for the individual pursuit,” Bruintjies confirmed.
When pressed for an event in which he’s most hopeful of winning a medal, Bruintjies highlighted two races.
“From a personal point of view I’m looking forward to the scratch race.
“Then the madison is a team event and I will be racing with Chanton (Perrins) and I really feel we could win a medal there,” a confident Bruintjies concluded.
