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Sasol fuels a lift in standards

2015-04-01

Raising the profile and standard of the women’s race has been a long-standing objective of the Absa Cape Epic. In the past two years energy and chemicals giant Sasol has taken the lead on this and sponsored prize money for the women which is equal to that of the men – a world first in cycling events of this status.

In 2015 Sasol’s initiative gave rise to the strongest Women’s category field yet and included legends of the sport such as Gunn Rita Dahle Flesjå of Norway, Esther Süss of Switzerland and Britain’s Sally Bigham. Sadly, fate in the form of illness or injury intervened in each of their races.

However, favourites Ariane Kleinhans of Switzerland and Demark’s Annika Langvad gave one of the most compelling performances ever seen at the Absa Cape Epic. They finished 35th overall in spite of being penalised one hour and 13 minutes for taking an inadvertent shortcut on Stage 2. The following day, on Stage 3, they finished 20th overall –  right up with professional men’s teams. Without their time penalty they would have finished 21st overall after the eight days – by some distance the best performance ever by a women’s team.

“The standard of preparation, long-term focus and then performance of Annika and Ariane is a credit to them both and sets a new benchmark for stage racing,” said Absa Cape Epic spokesperson Chris Whitfield. “For a variety of reasons their main challengers could not perform to the best of their ability, but we will see some great racing in the years to come.”

Sasol’s sponsorship has been central to the improvement in the women’s performance generally.

“Sasol believes in the inherent talent of women across all spheres of business as well as sports,” said Wrenelle Stander, Sasol Senior Vice President for Public Affairs.  “This is one of the reasons we have initiatives such as Women in Mining and the Women’s Network on the business front, and have also been a proud sponsor of Banyana Banyana. We believe in breaking down gender barriers and support initiatives that provide sustainable equal opportunities for all.” 

She said Sasol, through its involvement, is proud to be supporting and celebrating the epic women who will be taking part in this gruelling competition. 

Sasol also sponsored two women’s professional teams in the event. SasolRacing’s Yolande de Villiers of South Africa and her Slovenian teammate Janka Keseg Sterkova finished third overall in the category while all-South African pairing Yolandi du Toit and Leana de Jager (SasolRacing 2) were seventh.

“Most exciting about their involvement was that it sought to empower and celebrate those women who are breaking barriers and realising their full potential,” said Stander. “This fits in with our commitment to women empowerment as Sasol, and to support women to break barriers across the board,  in business and in sports.” 

Women’s mountain biking superstar Dahle Flesja enthused about Sasol’s initiatives: “I’m really grateful to the organisation for taking the step to equal the women’s prize money,” said Flesjå. “(Sasol) should be proud that they stepped up to this. The organisation should be an encouragement to other big organisations,” she added. 

“The increase in the women’s prize money has definitely increased the profile (of the race) for women cyclists,” said Bigham. “It also recognises that as women cyclists we need to make a living from what we do.” 

Langvad and Kleinhans were similarly enthusiastic.

“The Cape Epic can be proud of being among the pioneers regarding equality in prize money (between the sexes, thanks to Sasol’s sponsorship),” said Langvad. “Inequality builds the perception of female athletes being inferior to their male equalities. That might have been true earlier, but today we work our butts off as much as the men.”

“Equality in prize money serves as an important signal, as well as actually making it more likely that female athletes are able to make a living out of the sport,” she added. Kleinhans added: “The initiative to boost the ladies category played a very big role in making it more competitive.”

 

 

 

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