Vera Looser and Alex Miller put Namibia cycling on the world stage after brilliant peformances at the UCI MTB Marathon World Cup series in the Czech Republic on Sunday.
Competing at the first leg of the World Cup series in the Nove Mesto Na Morave, Looser won gold in the elite womens marathon, finishing 29 seconds ahead of Lejla Njemcevic of Bosnia Herzegovina, while Rosa van Doorn of the Netherlands came third, more than a minute behind Looser.
According to a report on the UCI website, Looser broke clear of Njemcevic on the technical rooted descent. Njemcevic and Van Doorn were not out of it and once again closed the gap on Looser, but the Namibian rode as hard as she could to the finish, to take the gold medal in a time of 5 hours 45 minutes and 31 seconds.
“I knew it would come down to tactics in the finish loops on the cross-country course,” Looser was quoted as saying.
“I know I’m technically quite good, and I know my sprint is good as well so I was just hoping on that. Coming up the rooty section your legs are just burning after five and a half hours of racing, but then I got a gap there and I just flew. I just knew I had to put the hammer down and take it home,” she added.
In the elite men’s race, Fabian Rabensteiner of Italy won the gold medal in 4 hours 39 minutes and 45 seconds, with Alex Miller seven seconds behind to win the silver medal, while Samuelle Porro of Italy finished another second behind to win the bronze medal.
Miller broke away with Rabensteiner, Porro and Marc Stutzmann of early on and remained in the leading bunch going into the final lap. Rabensteiner attacked the final climb establishing a significant gap to take the gold medal, with Miller following seven seconds behind in second place.
Riding his first ever UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Cup, Miller said he was simply content “to be able to fight for the podium” and had no complaints about the result. Rabenstein, he said “just had a little bit more on the last climb, so well done to him.”
Namibia’s national cycling coach Hans du Toit said they were fantastic performances by the Namibian duo against the world’s best riders.
“Vera had an incredible ride against the world’s best and that is quite an incredible achievement. Alex also gave a great performance against a very strong field that included previous Cape Epic and Swiss Epic champions. He did very well recently in Spain before he got a flat tyre and was quite confident that he would do well in the Czech Republic, but I never thought that he would come second against the world’s best,” he said.
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