UK and SA cross country champs team up

2017-02-09

South African national cross country champion Mariska Strauss and her British counterpart Annie Last have teamed up for the 2017 Absa Cape Epic – and the local rider’s coach believes they just might be the race’s “surprise package”.

Strauss and Last will race under the team name Hansgrohe-Cadence OMX.

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This will be Strauss’s third Absa Cape Epic and she will look to her experience to help carry the team through the eight days of Untamed African adventure.

“I can’t wait to share the experience with Annie and have a blast riding ourselves into a heap of hurt. The Cape Epic is such a well-organised, world-class event and they always seem to top the previous year and finish it off treating everyone like kings,” Strauss says. “The race fits in perfectly as the World Cup season (of cross country races) only starts at the end of May; it will be perfect to push us to the next level and remind us how to suffer properly!”

Last is an Absa Cape Epic newbie but she knows the race’s reputation. “I have heard lots about the Cape Epic, about how great the stages are and how amazing the scenery is. Also I keep getting told how hard it is and how you can’t prepare yourself for it. I’m going in excited to get stuck in to my first Epic and to see what it’s like.”

She adds: “Mariske has so much energy and positivity. She has ridden the Cape Epic twice before and so has big experience and knowledge. As a local South African, she is also the designated wildlife handler in case of any encounters!”

Errant animals aside, Last and Strauss say they are both in fine form and that their training has been going well.

Cadence Nutrition head Jeroen Swart has been Mariske’s coach for six seasons: “[Mariske] undoubtedly has the talent and ability to compete for stage wins and the overall title at the Cape Epic. If she finds the form she is capable of and paired with Annie, another supremely talented athlete, they might be the surprise package of the race."

The 2017 Cape Epic starts at the beautiful Meerendal Estate in Durbanville on March 19. From there the race takes the riders over 691 kilometres and 15400 metres of vertical ascent before finishing up in Val de Vie Estate near Franschhoek on March 26.