From the start it was clear that it would be a very tough test for thewomen as the pro teams immediately started attacking each other in an effort to get their riders away on the very undulating route. Tascol GT and Matlosana riders made their move with 70km to go followed by Cape Town Market riders. The top women Schoeman, Matthee and Van den Biggelaar managed to stay with the chasing bunch.
With 65km to go the time gap on the leading five men was 55sec. A huge effort by the chasing bunch to close the gap on the breakaway group caused Maroesjka Matthee and Linda van den Biggelaar to lose contact with the bunch leaving Anriette Schoeman the only women left in the bunch. With the chasing bunch quickly closing the gap on James Perry’s breakaway group the gap between Schoeman and the women left behind also quickly grew bigger. The chasing bunch managed to close the gap on the breakaway group at the 52.5km turning point in the race. At this stage it was clear that the chasing women would not get back to Schoeman.
The next 20km the bunch maintained a fast but constant pace. With 15km to the Tascol GT, Cape Town Market and the Matlosana riders launched attack after attack which was followed with vicious counter attacks. This proved too much for Schoeman and she lost contact with the leading group with 8km’s to go. James Perry and Dawid Maree managed to get away from the bunch in the last kilometres of the race. Perry outsprinted Maree to win in 2:24:57 with an average speed over the race distance of 43.46km/h. Maree took 2nd place in 2:24:58. Nolan Hoffman took 3rd place in 2:25:28 winning the bunch sprint.
Anriette Schoeman (Nashua Toyota) finished as 1st woman in 2:28:29 with an average speed over the race distance of 42:43km/h. Maroesjka Matthee (Intellebus) took 2nd place and Linda van Biggelaar (Mecer) 3rd place.
