It is the week of the South African National Road Championships and Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka will be in Paarl, Western Cape looking to defend our titles from 2016. The time trial championships take place on Thursday 9 February and the road race championships on Sunday 12 February.
Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka will have 7 riders competing for national honours in Paarl this weekend, hoping to have the honour of wearing our national flag on their jersey for the duration of the 2017 season. Jaco Venter, is our defending champion in the elite men road race category but unfortunately Venter will not be able to defend his title personally, due to illness ruling him out of competition. Stefan de Bod is the defending champion in both the u23 time trial and road race categories, and will be racing both championship events once again this year.
Stefan de Bod will be joined by Reinardt Janse van Rensburg, Jacques Janse van Rensburg, Nic Dougall, Ryan Gibbons, Nicholas Dlamini and Louis Visser in representing our African Team at the championships. Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka don’t get to race on home soil much during the course of the year and so the national championships are certainly a goal event for our South African riders. The tough nature of the course in Paarl will suit our team and we will be looking to take gold in all 4 races we compete in this week.
u23 Individual Time Trial (39.8km) – 9 Feb
Stefan de Bod
Nicholas Dlamini
Louis Visser
Elite Individual Time Trial (39.8km) – 9 Feb
Reinardt Janse van Rensburg
Ryan Gibbons
Elite and u23 Road Race (180km) – 12 Feb
Reinardt Janse van Rensburg
Jacques Janse van Rensburg
Nic Dougall
Ryan Gibbons
Stefan de Bod
Nicholas Dlamini
Louis Visser
Ryan Gibbons – Rider
I am excited to be able to race back in South Africa with the team. We’ve all got a bit of racing in the legs already this year and seem to be going quite well. We are not quite a full team and losing Jaco to illness this week was a big loss but I’m pretty confident we have enough to pull off a good result. Naturally, we want to keep the road title in the team but Reinardt is really looking good so hopefully we can pick up the TT title too. I’m very much looking forward to a good week of racing here.
Founded in 2007, Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka became the first ever African cycling team to gain a WorldTour license, in 2016. In the team’s palmares you can find a Milan-Sanremo victory, numerous stage wins at the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana, two Tour of Britain GC victories, and 36 National Championships. The team has bases in South Africa, the Netherlands and Italy. It’s also known as Africa’s Team due to its focus on helping African talents to the world stage of cycling. The team races to raise funds for the Qhubeka Charity to mobilise people on bicycles in Africa. To contribute to the #DoYourPart campaign, click here.
Qhubeka is an Nguni word that means “to progress”, “to move forward”. Qhubeka (qhubeka.org) is a global non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing education, health and economic opportunities by providing simple, sustainable transportation through the power of bicycles.
Dimension Data (dimensiondata.com) uses the power of technology to help organisations achieve great things in the digital era. As a member of the NTT Group, we accelerate our clients’ ambitions through digital infrastructure, hybrid cloud, workspaces for tomorrow, and cybersecurity. With a turnover of USD 7.5 billion, offices in 58 countries, and 31,000 employees, we deliver wherever our clients are, at every stage of their technology journey. We’re proud to be the Official Technology Partner of Amaury Sport Organisation, organiser of the Tour de France, and the title partner of the cycling team, Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka.
Learn more about the team at www.africasteam.com.
