Argus: A perfect Day

Tyler Day (Bonitas) benefited from a perfect lead out by his team to win the 2011 Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour. The 21-year-old crossed the finish line of the 110km mass-participation event in a time of 2 hours 32 minutes ahead of experienced teammate Malcolm Lange. It was Lange’s last race as he will be retiring today with 409 professional wins to his name. Day had nothing but praise for his captain at the finish line. “Malcolm is the best rider to learn from and told me to start sprinting very late because the finish was tricky. Our sprint train waited for the last possible moment until the boys delivered us perfectly to the line.”

A dangerous group of 12 riders got away on the Suikerbossie climb with 18km to go. It included SA road race champion Darren Lill (DCM), David George (360 Life), Burry Stander (Songo.info) and Day. A bunch sprint was inevitable though as the sprinter’s teams brought them back with 6km to go.

The MTN Qhubeka team controlled the pace for the last 5km protecting a previous winner, Arran Brown. They seemed to lose some organisation coming into the finish as the Bonitas train went as late as possible to deliver Day and Lange to a 1-2 finish in South Africa’s biggest one-day race. Day showed some early form a month ago when he finished third in the Tour of Mumbai behind Elia Viviani (Liquigas-Cannondale) and Robbie McEwen (Team RadioShack).

Cherise Taylor (USN) won the ladies event for the second time in her career. The former silver medallist at the junior world road race championships pipped Ashleigh Moolman Pasio (Nashua-Toyota) on the line. Both ladies will be riding for the Lotto-Honda ladies team in Europe this year.

Men’s Top 10

1 Tyler Day

2 Malcolm Lange

3 Herman Fouche

4 Dusty Day

5 Arran Brown

6 Abdelbasset Hannachi

7 Jean Spies

8 Johann Rabie

9 Jan van Puyvelde

10 Arne Hassink

Women’s Top 3