SA’s International Teams
The next few months are going to be helter-skelter for South Africans competing internationally in the green and gold of Team SA rather than in their professional team’s kits.
First up is the XCM World Championships in Laissac, France. This year it takes place at the Roc Laissagais mountain bike marathon, with the main race happening on the 26th of June. Robyn de Groot is the only South African to meet CSA’s selection criteria and she’ll be racing the best in the world at MTB’s long route format across a tough 68.9km course which includes 2 587 meters of climbing.
The following weekend the cross-country specialists will be in action in the XCO World Championships at Nové Mēsto na Moravē, Czech Republic. The championships start mid-week on the 29th of June, but with no elite women in the squad South Africa won’t be racing XCR so the fun and games will only start when Danielle Strydom and Henry Liebenberg race for Junior XCO glory on Friday 1 July. On Saturday the 2nd it’s Alan Hatherly’s turn on track in the Under 23 XCO World Champs, followed by Philip Buys, James Reid and Sipho Madolo on Sunday the 3rd of July. The Elite races will be live on Red Bull TV so be sure to cheer on our guys!
Then the attention shifts to the big event of the year: the Rio Olympics. At the time of writing the South African squad was yet to be announced but the South African men have done enough to justify two riders in the men’s race according to the UCI Selection criteria. But sadly the South African women are ranked only 21st , putting them well outside the qualification berths of the top 17 nations. To compound that SASCOC have ruled that only the UCI’s Olympic Qualification Rankings will apply and that they won’t be taking athletes based on the one spot we earned via the 2015 African Continental Championships.
The mountain bike races take place on the final two day of the Rio Olympics, so save the date for 20 and 21 August 2016.
