Roger Suren won Namibia’s only medal at the Africa Road Cycling African Championships in Kwale, Kenya yesterday when he came third in the junior men’s road race.
It was another great performance by Suren, who earlier this year won a silver medal at the UCI World MTB Cross Country Championships, but was not recognised at the Namibia Sport Awards on Saturday evening, after he failed to win the junior sportsman of the year award.
His coach Hans du Toit, who also failed to win the coach of the year award, made a pointed remark after Suren’s performance yesterday.
“Well we did not win last night, but we won today…… much bigger prize, thanks Nam for the support,” he said on the cycling support whatssap group.
Natan Tesfalem of Eritrea won the gold medal, completing the 107km race in 2 hours 44 minutes 19 seconds, while Paul Miro of Uganda won the silver medal, finishing 22 seconds behind, and Suren ther bronze medal, finishing 1:38 behind.
Namibia’s Marco Thiel finished 14th overall, 2:57 behind the winner, and Christiaan van der Westhuizen 25th, 6:50 behind.
In the senior men’s road race yesterday, Eritrea made a podium clean sweep taking the top three places. Biniam Girmay won the gold medal, Henok Mulubrhan won silver and Natnael Tesfatsion won bronze.
Namibia’s top cyclist was Alex Miller who came 25th, 2 minutes 44 seconds behind the winner; while Martin Freyer came 40th, 7:50 behind; and Theuns van der Westhuizen 51st, 19:13 behind.
On Saturday, Anri Greeff finished ninth overall in the Elite Womens road race, finishing 47 seconds behind the winner, Haylee Preen of South Africa who completed the 107km race in 3:10:31.
Birikti Fessehaye of Eritrea came second, three seconds behind, while Claudette Nyirarukundo of Rwanda finished third, 18 seconds behind.
Other SADC cyclists in the top 20 were 10th placed Lucy Young of South Africa; Lucie De Marigny-Lagess of Mauritius (11th), and Aurelie Halbwachs of Mauritius (15th).
Namibia’s Louise Breed came 33rd, 11 minutes 13 seconds behyind the winner, while Olivia Shililifa came 36th, 13:40 behind the winner.
On Friday, Delsia Janse van Vuuren excelled to finish fifth in the junior women’s road race over 64,5km.
Van Vuuren remained with the leading peleton throughout the race and at the fibnal sprint finished in the ledading bunch of 10 cyclists who all completed the race in 2 hours 2 minutes 58 seconds.
Kahsay Kiros of Ethiopia won the gold medal, while Masengesho Yvonne of Rwanda won silver and Grmay Gebreslasse of Ethiopia bronze, while Tammene Gimbato of Ethiopia came fourth.
Van Vuuren was the top rider of the SADC region, with South Africa’s Chanel Orr coming eighth and another South African, Helen Olwage 17th.
On Thursday, Suren and Janse van Vuuren both came seventh in the junior individual time trial races.
In the junior men’s time trial over 14km, Triustan Hardy of South Africa won the gold medal in 17 minutes 12 seconds, with Nahom Efriem of Eritrea finishing 20 seconds behind to take the silver medal, and Dean Woolley of South Africa 21 seconds behind to win the bronze medal.
Suren finished seventh, 52 seconds behind the winner, while Marco Thiel came 17th, 2:15 behind.
The junior women’s individual time trial over 14kmn was won by Kahsay Kiros of Ethiopia in 19:59, with Adyam Tesfu of Eritrea finishing 10 seconds behind to win the silver medal, and Masengesho Yvonne of Rwanda 31 seconds behind to win the bronze medal.
Helen Olwage of South Africa came fifth (1:01 behind), Chanel Orr of SA came sixth, 1:14 behind, and Janse van Vuuren came seventh, 1:29 behind.
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