It was a clean sweep of the stages for 2024 women’s Absa Cape Epic winners Anne Terpstra and Nicole Koller (GHOST Factory Racing) and an emphatic win for Matt Beers and Howard Grotts (Toyota-Specialized-NinetyOne) who carved out a gap of more than 11 minutes to their nearest rivals.
After a prologue and seven stages at the South African pairs mountain bike event, Beers and Grotts – who now has two titles to his name – had a time of 25:22:17 while the battle for second was tight. Nino Schurter and Sebastien Fini (World Bicycle Relief) finished just 31 seconds ahead of Hans Becking and Wout Alleman who were 11:36 back from the overall winners.
“It’s all pretty crazy. To win three Absa Cape Epics. I am not really sure what to say. It feels like yesterday I won my first Epic,” said Beers who won the event for the first time with Jordan Sarrou in 2021 and last year with Christopher Blevins before taking his third victory with the American, Grotts.
”It’s a total whirlwind,” said the South African in a race media release. “I have been lucky with good partners and really good people. All my partners have been amazing. I am very lucky to have these awesome people in my life.”
Beers and Grotts won two stages on their way to overall victory in the men’s category and moved into the top spot on the General Classification on stage 4. While Terpstra and Koller had the perfect run on their debut at the race, never losing grip of the lead from day 1, it was a slightly closer battle in terms of overall time in the top two spots of the women’s race.
The GHOST Factory racing team finished with a time of 30:56:22, while Mona Mitterwallner – who had been battling with illness through the week – and Candice Lill (Cannondale Factory Racing) were 8:36 back. Then there was a larger gap to third with 2022 winner Sofia Gomez Villafañe and Samara Sheppard (Toyota-Specialized-NinetyOne) nearly 36 minutes behind the race winners.
Matt Beers & Howard Grotts took the overall win after a third place on stage 7 (Image credit: Sam Clark/Cape Epic)
“The Cannondale and Specialized teams put up such a hard fight this week,” said Terpstra, who was first due to take on the Cape Epic in 2020 but that race was cancelled amid the COVID pandemic. “It was really exhausting, so it is amazing to be standing here as an Absa Cape Epic winner.”
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Given it was the duo’s first attempt at the gruelling 603km race with 16,050m of climbing the top step of the overall podium – let alone the top step and eight stage victories along the way – far outstripped their expectations.
“It’s a dream come true – completely unbelievable,” said Koller. “We honestly didn’t expect this when we planned to race the Absa Cape Epic. We didn’t think we would be finishing our first-ever Epic like this.
“It was a tough week, a great race. We worked hard but we had fun as well. What a week.”
