"Wow, what a feeling! We won!" Sally could barely contain the joy. For her and teammate Karien it was only just sinking in ? they had won the Cape Epic.

The pairing made a perfect team, Karien and Sally, the South African and British national marathon champion respectively. After 8 stages together everything fell into place. They rode with the overall classification in mind, and not the glory of stage wins throughout the event. It was a tactic which paid off by the third stage. The leading team were under pressure and made a mistake, breaking one of the fundamental rules of the event and giving them a time penalty. It awarded the lead to Sally and Karien. The fifth and final stage was just about protecting this lead to the finish.

An event like this is all about the team, not only riders, but also the support staff. Sallys partner Dave was the man behind the scenes, and neither he, nor the material, let anyone down. "Everything went well. I had a heavy crash on the second stage, but I was able to push on. Karien also crashed a couple of times. Luck was on our side though, and we were able to keep focused."

With a safe lead of 1.5 hours, the duo?s winning time was 37hr44m09s as they cross the line in Lourensford, South Africa, to win the 2011 Cape Epic.

(Copyright: Sportograf)

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