14 Jun 2016

Gaborone Cycling Club’s rising star, Thato Madimabe, has won the Gem Diamonds Kalahari MTB solo 240km full race in Mokolodi. 

Madimabe (21) finished the three-day race with an exceptional time of 10 hours 35 minutes to be crowned this year’s Gem Diamonds Kalahari MTB Solo race winner.

He finished ahead of his close competitor, South African Victor Potgieter who finished second with 10 hrs 40minutes.

On third place was Kfir Teichman finishing with 11hrs 22mns. On other races the Kalahari Insurance Brokers duo of Timothy Hammond and Thinus Redelinghuys retained their title in the team event with 9hrs 51mns followed by Biogen team of Alan Gordon and Gordon Gilbert.

Madimabe left the starting base in Lions Park with a high speed, leading the pack along with the duo of Hammond and Redelinghuys.

Between Boatle and Manyana, Madimabe slipped to let Potgieter take the lead and reach finish line first at 3hrs 49mins. Madimabe arrived three minutes later.

Second day, the cat and mouse contend continued with Madimabe geared to make up for the lost time of the previous day. The lanky rider swiftly rode the 76km just under 3hrs 35mns beating Potgieter with a 7 minutes difference.

The last day with the last 73km terrain to ride, Madimabe left on a good lead ahead of his category nemesis just behind the 2 of team competitors of Hammond, Redelinghuys and Gordon, Gilbert.

Madimabe was on a high ride going through Boatle with only about 5km to the finishing line ahead of Potgieter. However just about a kilometre Potgieter, caught up with Madimabe.

Despite the last sprint to the finishing line, with second’s difference Madimabe won the race with advantage of the previous race time he accumulated against Potgieter.

Madimabe told BOPA that his first day performance was not quite good as he expected, due to cramping that he experienced along the race.

Despite that he said arriving second place on the first day was a motivation for him, since he had to catch up on the second day to make up for the lost time on the first day of the race.

He said though the competition was not what he expected, Potgieter gave him a good competition. He expressed his disappointment that he had expectations that some of the cyclist he competed with at the African champions would attend.

“There wasn’t much of a competition for me, because I expected some of the cyclists who took part in the African championships hence I put up so much preparations for this challenge,” he said.

Madimabe also explained that he used to be a team racer, however he expressed that he enjoys racing as solo rider because in that way he affords to explore his racing techniques better.

He further said riding as a team pose a lot of challenges because it have a lot of pressure, since one have to work alongside with a partner hence he chose to go solo which he prefers to keep. ENDS