BSG Multisport

Murray and Steyn unstoppable in BSG Energade race 6
Monday, 21 November 2011   [credit Manfred Seidler (TSA)]

During the early morning hours of the day of race 6 in the BSG Energade triathlon series, event organisers must have thought that the race was to be cancelled due to bad weather. Gazebo's and branding were blown into the dam at Brandvlei prison. Event staff had their hands full trying to get the transition area back to form before athletes arrived at the event. Miraculously, with less than one hour to the start of the race it was a beautiful, calm day.

However with this leg of the series, held in the Western Cape, athletes and spectators were treated to the full four seasons of the year in one day. With rain and wind haunting the athletes one could have expected results of an inferior quality.

Racing was fierce, with Richard Murray needing to make up almost 52 seconds on cycle leaders Abrahm Louw and Claude Eksteen on the run, it was sure to be electrifying. Murray blitzing the 5km run in 15:23. He caught Louw with less than 400m to the finish. The win gave Richard his fourth gold medal in the 2011 series in a time of 59:10.

Louw and Eksteen rounding up the podium positions in 59:18 and 59:38 respectively. It was good to see Wikus Weber returning to racing after his accident in Spain almost 3 months ago. He finished a respectable 7th in the 11 strong elite men field. With the final leg, less than two weeks away, one can surely look forward to a superb race with all the main contenders competing on the day.

In the woman’s event we saw Anel Stewart leading the swim. She had a 15 second gap on the rest of the field. With the ladies working nicely together, they soon caught up with Anel. They all arrived in T2 together and only a miracle could prevent Andrea Steyn making it 6 out of 6. Carla Van Huyssteen ran beautifully to finish second in 1:09:24 and Vicky van der Merwe finished in 1:09:49 to grab bronze. It is almost certain that Steyn would defend her title and spectators can look forward to a stunning performance in Gauteng.

The age group event was won by Richard Woolrich followed by Rohan Kennedy. The woman’s age group race was won by veteran Viv Williams followed by Lezandre Joubert.

The junior men and women, 16-19 age group saw Russel Gaynor winning the boy’s and Mnandi Weber the girl’s event.