Kim races to third Cape Town Cycle Tour victory
Since the Cape Town Cycle Tour made the bold decision, in 2018, to have a separate Ladies’ Start in Fish Hoek, Kim Le Court De Billot from Mauritius, has won the 78km race for three of the five years.
For this year’s Cape Town Cycle Tour, the conditions were wet and miserable causing a 15 minute delay in the Ladies’ Start until the visibility improved enough to set them off. It was still a very wet ride with plenty of crashes and many elite ladies opting against racing and rather starting in one of the seeded batches to ride the full route safely. Candice Lill (of mountain biking fame) and Kim both did some work early on in the race to stretch out the field, while the field caught them again at the base of Chapman’s Peak, they managed to split the group again up the climb while a portion of the peloton was caught up in a crash.
It was Hayley Preen (a local hero and former National Road Champion) who attacked next up Suikerbossie with only Candice and Kim managing to go with her. This trio managed to keep away all the way to the finish where Kim proved to be the strongest in the sprint, winning her third CTCT in a time of 2 hours 8 minutes and 5 seconds.
What happened in the Men’s Cape Town Cycle Tour?
The men’s race saw a first time win from Marc Pritzen who said the wet conditions suited him well. The men’s field was stretched from the M3 already with the breakaway bunch managing to maintain a lead all the way. The group slowly thinned down to four, Marc Pritzen, HB Kruger, Sascha Weber and Byron Munton at the top of Suikerbossie and Marc was able to take the win in 2 hours 37 minutes and 55 seconds, in a 1km sprint for the line.
Despite the limited entries due to Covid regulations and the inclement weather, the 44th Cape Town Cycle Tour was as much fun as ever to ride and just as riveting to watch.
