Ladies cycling is close to my heart and over the past 2 years there have been changes and improvements. With MTN coming on board this year one has already seen changes with the way the ladies race and that minimal races came down to a big bunch sprint.<?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> The ladies went to NZ and Marissa showed what we can do against the best in the world. Then they went to China and Cherise showed us what can be achieved. The superseries have had a major impact on ladies cycling this year. In some of the races the ladies broke away from some top Vets men and stayed away. Tour Durban Marissa broke away with the leading men and stayed with them to the end. This opened a gap of more than 8 min to the chasing bunch. I think we must support them because I still believe the next Olympic medal for SA will be from a lady and not a man. Perhaps not this year but definitely this can be achieved in the next 8 years. The problem we are sitting with is that there is only a handful of ladies that are out there that can really race.(Lynette, Yolande du Toit, Marissa, Cherise, Chrissie, Yolande de Villiers, Cashandra, Irene Tortius, Robyn de Groot, Anriette, Elzette Visage) Hope I did not leave anyone out. But most of the girls are 30+ and with only 4 or 5 that are still young. We need to get more ladies to start racing. How do we do it, I don't have the answer. Not that age is a problem but if they stop cycling in the next year or two we are going to have a major problem if we do not have more ladies entering competitive cycling.
