The violent protests that are raging in Sabie have put the Sabie Ashburton Investments National MTB Series, one of South Africa’s most established classics on the mountain biking circuit in jeopardy. The event that is due to take place this weekend attracted some of the big stars in international and local mountain biking is now faced with the reality that it will potentially be forced to cancel and postpone the event to a suitable date in the future.
According to Fritz Pienaar from Advendurance his team have been on the ground and very involved with local authorities to monitor the situation, but with the volatile and increasingly violent protests the police and local council have indicated that they will not allow an event to take place while they can’t dedicate any resources to secure the safety of visitors. “We have no choice but to consider postponement at this stage, this was the first time in all my years of organising events that we’ve been forced to deal with something like this, but at the end of the day the safety of our participants are paramount” Pienaar added.
Local police won’t allow the event to continue, unless the situation in Sabie improves significantly. Participants will be contacted tomorrow once the municipal council met with community leaders tomorrow morning, after which the police will make a decision on whether the event may go ahead.
Hi all - please note this is the offical version. Someone, who I would like to call a monkey, but I believe this is nolonger permitted, has taken the statement and edited out words "potential" and "consider" to make it read that the event has been cancelled.
The decision on the event wil be made after tomorrow's (Thursday) meeting between all parties.