Team effort helps Brown win Knysna Cycle Tour

Monday, 04 July 2011 08:31

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More to come from MTN-Qhubeka

Arran Brown (MTN-Qhubeka) won Sunday’s Pick n Pay Weekend Argus Rotary Knysna Cycle Tour thanks to a brilliant team effort.

Brown won the 100km road race in 2 hours, 31 minutes. He was joined by Tyler Day (Bonitas) and Richard Baxter (Tasol GT) on the winner’s podium. It was an important victory for Brown and the MTN-Qhubeka team.

The first break of the day came very early on with the climb of 9km out of Knysna to Plettenberg Bay. MTN-Qhubeka had Dennis van Niekerk and Adrien Niyonshuti in this break.

“Soon afterwards Bradley Potgieter came to me and said he was feeling good and wanted to bridge the gap. I followed and we were able to form a new group in front,” said Brown.

There was one absentee from this front group though: Tyler Day (Bonitas). This meant that Day and his team had to chase and do a lot of hard work to make it to the front riders again. “I was able to just sit on in the break, because my team-mates were there,” said Brown.

MTN-Qhubeka managed to control all the breaks even when local boy Kevin Evans (360Life) and Hanco Kachelhoffer (Bonitas) attacked on the climbs. Thanks to some hard work by the MTN Qhubeka trio - Dennis van Niekerk, Jacques Janse van Rensburg and Adrien Niyonshuti. After the turn-around back to Knysna the front riders had the wind to contend with as well. This forced some breaks in the field.

With 25km to go all the main role players like Brown, Day and Baxter were together again. Both sprinters, Brown and Day had at least four team mates in the break as well. Richard Baxter had James Perry for company. In the last 10km there were some serious attacks including one from Evans. But the most dangerous one came from James Perry (Tasol GT) with about 3km to the finish.

“Very soon he had a gap of about 200m. It was threatening. Dylan (Girdlestone) tried to bring him back, but ran out of legs after a massive effort. Then Reinardt (Janse van Rensburg) did a great job to bring Perry back. In the end he sacrificed himself to give me a chance.”

Brown managed to outsprint Day and Baxter to reward his team and thank them properly for all their hard work. “After racing overseas and getting some good results, we needed a big win in South Africa. The team pulled together and we learned a lot the past few months. To win today is good for the moral of the team. We have been trying really hard.

“We are finally finding our feet as a team. And now we are also racing as a team. For us to take the team to the next level we need to dominate local racing. “We showed today what we can do. There is more to follow.”

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