Vera Adrian won Namibia’s first medal at the African Cycling Championships, which are currently taking place in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt, when she came third in the Elite Women’s time trial.
South Africa’s professional cyclist Ashley Moolman Pasio won the gold medal in a time of 30 minutes 38,15 seconds at an average speed of 41km per hour.
Wahazit Kidane from Eritrea won the silver medal, while Adrian came third to clinch the bronze medal.
Another Namibian cyclist, Heletje van Staden finished seventh overall in the women’s time trial, but unfortunately Namibia could not compete in the women’s team competition due to ‘technical issues,’ and Irene Steyn had to return to Namibia without competing.
“For the women’s team the race was over even before it started as a technical issue on one of the licences, and unnecessarily strict international standards being enforced meant that the team could not compete. A disappointed Irene Steyn has already left Sharm-El-Sheikh but she is determined to take revenge at next year’s African Champs, which will be held in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa,” said Namibia’s team manager Mannie Heymans.
In the Junior Women’s Time Trial, Namibia’s Chelna Neethling just missed a place on the podium after finishing fourth.
Namibia’s Elite Men’s team came agonisingly close to winning a medal, after losing out to South Africa by 75 hundredths of a second.
Twelve African nations took part in the Elite Men’s Team Time Trial over 42km, an event where teams of four riders race together against the clock with the time being taken of the third rider across the line. Eritrea continued their dominance of the past few years to win the race in 54 minutes 55,46 seconds, while Algeria came second in 55:27,18. South Africa won the bronze medal in 57:21,43, with Namibia finishing fourth in 57:22,18.
The Namibian team consisted of seasoned campaigner, Dan Craven and three relative newcomers to international competition, Costa Seibeb, Heiko Redecker and Gerhard Mans.
“I’m very proud of the performance of this young group, especially since one of our top riders, Till Drobisch, was unable to participate. This performance points to a bright future for Namibia in this event,” said Heymans.
Heymans however was not impressed with the organisation at the championships, describing it as ‘chaotic.’
“The chaos of the first day continued on the third day with technical issues and officials who had to do bike checks arriving 25 minutes before the start of the race. This hampered the warm up of riders and kept the mechanics on their toes,” he said.
“Four service vehicles were promised by the organising committee, but on the day of the race, only two turned up. This is totally unacceptable at this level of competition,” Heymans added, although he mentioned that he had convinced two local drivers to help them out with the result that each rider did have a service vehicle.
In the Junior Time Trial, Namibia’s Pascal Marrgraff finished eighth, with an average time of 40,5km/h over the 21km.
The championships continued with the road races yesterday.
