Marc is the African MTB champion

NAMIBIAN mountainbiker Marc Bassingthwaighte rode an excellent race to win the Elite Men’s title at the African Continental Mountain Bike Championships in Nelspruit, South Africa on Saturday.

Bassingthwaighte completed the six-lap race in a time of one hour 59 minutes and 13 seconds to finish one minute and 43 seconds ahead of South Africa’s Renay Groustra. Another South African, Ben Swanepoel finished third in 2:02:12. Bassingthwaighte took the lead from the start and by the second lap he and Groustra broke away from the chasing pack. They opened up a gap on the chasing pack and by the fourth lap Bassingthwaighte finally managed to shake off Groustra. ‘I took a bit of a gamble and decided to force the pace to see if Renay had my stamina. He proved a little tough to crack and kept for a while and I was starting to wonder about a possible sprint finish when all of a sudden he broke and I was on my own. From there I put my head down and rode the last two laps hard to open the gap more and managed to bag my first elite African championship title after a bad result the previous time round,’ he said. ‘I had a lot of confidence in my equipment which hasn’t let me down for a while now for which I am grateful. Every race without mechanical problems is a good race, even greater if you win. And a title like African champion always sounds sweet,’ he added.Namibia’s top female mountain biker Heletje van Staden also excelled to come second in the Pro-Elite Women’s category. Van Staden completed the four-lap event in a time of 1:40:41, to finish well behind South Africa’s Yolande Speedy who won with a time of 1:31:53.Another Namibian participant in the Elite Men’s category, Arno Viljoen, failed to complete the race. The Namibian men’s team was managed by veteran Mannie Heymans who broke his arm at the Namibian Championships at the end of June. www.namibiasport.com.na