Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka) was crowned the national elite champion at the South African National Road Race Championships which took place in Wellington yesterday. Van Rensburg crossed the line alongside his team mate Stefan de Bod who took the U23 title.
Team Dimension Data started the 180km championship race as the marked favourites and one of their riders – Jacques Janse van Rensburg – was in an early move of six riders which went clear.
As the break reached a lead of 4 minutes and the peloton hit a big crosswind section, Team Dimension Data put the peloton into the gutter and blew the race to pieces.
The result was 7 riders going clear from the peloton, pursuing the 6 early leaders. Up front, the break had splintered under the pressure being applied by Jacques Janse van Rensburg and Willie Smit (Roadcover). The remnants of the break were soon caught and dropped by the chase group, and then Janse van Rensburg and Smit were also brought back into the fold.
De Bod attacked with a little over 50km to go and was soon joined by Reinardt Janse van Rensburg and Smit. The trio worked well together to quickly open a 1’30” gap over the rest of the race. Gibbons and Jacques Janse van Rensburg then also attacked in an attempt to bridge to the 3 leaders. Up front Reinardt Janse van Rensburg and de Bod were able to drop Smit, with just under 20km to go.
The two leaders worked all the way to line together with Reinardt Janse van Rensburg crossing first to take the elite gold medal and the national jersey, de Bod 2nd overall and taking the spoils in the U23 category. Smit held on for a commendable 3rd place with Ryan Gibbons 4th and Jacques Janse van Rensburg 5th.
Reinardt Janse van Rensburg – “This is the first time I have won the nationals road race in any category so it is a very special moment for me. The team was fantastic today, they really did a super job. The conditions suited us with the strong crosswinds, we were always hoping for the wind today and without the wind to make the race hard, it could’ve been trickier for us. We put the race in the gutter after 90km and then it became a numbers game. Stefan was really incredible, what a talent he is but I thank the whole team for this victory. This a dream come true for me and I will wear the national jersey in Europe with pride.”
Stefan de Bod – “The u23 race went really well for us today. In the end my strongest competition was my teammate Nicholas and we obviously weren’t even racing against each other. So in the overall race I saw an opportunity to attack and it worked out really with Reinardt coming across to me with Willie. This is a great start to the year for me and I just hope I can take this form to Europe now as doing well in Europe is my main focus this year.”
