THULANI IS NKONYENI G2G CHAMP

NKONYENI – It is not how you start, but how you finish that matters. This quote relates to how 4eva Cycling Club cyclist Thulani Gule defended the Inyatsi Nkonyeni G2G Mountain Bike (MTB) Classic yesterday. The 39-year-old cyclist was third overall but he was the eventual winner of the race with South Africa’s duo Christo Carelsen and Rudolph Pretorius temporarily disqualified but later brought back into the race as winners as well.

The SA duo are said to have taken a short cut unknowingly and had to re-do the remaining distance to be considered for results recording.
Gule, according to the organisers, followed the route correctly and did not take short cuts. He finished the 65km race in 3:45 hours but would have been third had the South Africans not allegedly strayed. The 4eva cyclist finished the very same race last year in 3:00:37 hours. The five dimensional races namely 65km, 35km, 20 and 10km started and finished at Nkonyeni Residential Golf Estate.

difficult race

“It was a difficult race and that is why it took me long to finish as compared to last year’s edition. It had more climbs than downhill. However, I followed the route and the marshals were handy and they directed me when I was about to take the wrong one,” Gule said.

He said he was happy to defend his title.
“It was nice that I won the race despite the prevailing circumstances. However, I have to say I feel sorry for the guys who got lost along the way. I hope it will not disappoint them such that they do not participate in this very same race next time,” he said.
Meanwhile, Christo Carelsen, William Kelly and Greg Pretorius all came second after consultation with PROTime officials and Eswatini Cycling Association Sihlangu Nhlabatsi. According to the revised results, they clocked 3:46 hours.
When reached for comment, William Kelly decried the fact that the race was not well marked.

“I got lost at some point as marshals told me to follow some route which turned to be wrong. The marshals misled us and some of the markings were not clear,” Kelly said.
Carelsen confessed that after he was told by the race officials that he would be disqualified, he decided to start from where he took the short cut.
“To be honest, I am disappointed as I could not figure out the route and I had to get assistance from the officials to re-do the race,” the Nelspruit-based cyclist said.

When the Eswatini Cycling President, Sihlangu Nhlabatsi, was reached for comment he said; “Today’s race had many challenges which include mainly the weather conditions which had a direct impact on the marshalling of the event,” Nhlabatsi said.
“Riders, especially on the 10 and 65km race, respectively, got lost because of the lack of or improper marshalling.

“This then caused glitches on the results where decisions had to be made at federation level. It is worth mentioning that the federation, as a mother body, becomes the mediator. Nevertheless, the race vest on the race organiser,” he said.
He added that the major issue was the 65km, where Christo Carelsen, William Kelly and Rudolph Pretorius were shown a wrong route leading them to do 10km above the intended distance. Three of the riders continued with the race despite the challenges,” he said

He said that Gule who did the right route was the eventual winner with the trio given the same time of 3:46 hours which landed them on second position.
crucial lessons learnt

“There are crucial lessons learnt from the event and we hope in the next edition, we will have thrashed out any challenges forthwith. A big thank you to our sponsors and the families that braved the wet weather to support their loved ones and lastly, let me take the opportunity to apologise to our visiting and local cyclists for the glitches that were experienced today and we hope that it will never happen again,” the president concluded.
Otherwise, the race went ahead to the end.

In the 35km race, Sihlangu was the overall winner after clocking 1:52:55 hours while Linda Loffler shone in the ladies category finishing the race in 2:21:20 hours. Shinning in the 20km was Siyabonga Mangwe on 44:39 minutes while Nothando Nkambule reigned supreme in the ladies category on 1:42:21 minutes.
(More results and reports in next edition)

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