Matt Beers and Candice Lill spearhead a strong South African challenge at the 2024 UCI Marathon World Championships in Snowshoe, USA on Sunday. While Beers and Lill are considered contenders for the title, they will have to overcome a stacked field containing some of the sport’s biggest stars.
By Sean Badenhorst
Three-time Absa Cape Epic winner, Beers, heads up the South African contingent that includes current South African marathon champion, Wessel Botha, multiple Absa Cape Epic stage winner, Marco Joubert and the trio of Herman Fourie, Rossouw Bekker and Jaedon Terlouw. Lill has only one South African teammate in Nicola Freitas after Hayley Preen crashed during training on Wednesday and fractured her wrist.
The course covers a distance of 104km with 1988m of ascent. It’s a mixture of singletrack, gravel roads and jeep track through the Alegheny Mountain range in West Virginia. It’s not overly technical, but there are long sections of singletrack that make overtaking difficult, so positioning will be key.
Not every edition of the Marathon World Champs has a strong XCO contingent, but when there is, it’s usually the XCO racers that dominate. And with a UCI World Cup round in the USA next weekend – 27-29 September – there’s a slew of top XCO racers on the Marathon World Champs start list.
In the men’s race, Beers and his compatriots will have their work cut out for them to match the pace of the likes of XCO whippets, Christopher Blevins (USA), Simon Andreassen (DEN), and Victor Koretzky (FRA). Blevins and Andreasson have both won XCO World Cup rounds this year, while Koretzky came close to winning XCO World Cups, The Olympic Games and XCO World Championships! The Frenchman, who has raced in WorldTour road races and has the endurance capacity, will want to end his silver-medal streak on Sunday for certain – preferably with a gold…
It’s a small, but super strong XCO contingent and it’s up against an impressive list of marathon specialists including Beers, who won his third Cape Epic title this year and has been finishing on the podium at the prestigious Life Time Grand Prix Series races in the USA this year. His fifth place in a sprint for the win at the Chequamegon 60km race this past weekend indicates he’s on good form. Beers definitely has a shot at a medal and on this course, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be the gold.
But Beers isn’t the only marathon specialist on the start list, with former UCI Marathon World Champions, Germany’s Andreas Seewald (2021) and Colombia’s Leo Paez (2019 and 2020) also in the mix. Both won their world titles on courses with a lot more climbing, so many not feature in the title hunt on Sunday.
Other endurance specialists in the mix are 2022 Absa Cape Epic winners, Georg Egger and Lukas Baum of Germany, as well as a string of riders who have won Cape Epic stages and contested the overall title, including Wout Alleman (BEL), Hans Becking (NED), Jose Dias (POR), Samuele Porro (ITA), Fabian Rabensteiner (ITA), Simon Stiebjahn (GER) and Martin Stocek (CZE).
Each nation can include up to 20 male and 20 female riders in their national team. Not surprisingly the USA has filled it’s full 20-slot allocation in the men’s team for its first home XCM World Champs. But surprisingly, its line-up doesn’t include Keagan Swenson, the USA’s top endurance racer. In his absence, Blevins, who has won an Absa Cape Epic title, is certainly equipped for the longer haul and will be motivated to become the first rider from the USA to win the XCM World Champs title.
The women’s race will also see XCO specialists setting the pace. Haley Batten (USA), Jolanda Neff (SUI), Candice Lill (RSA), Sina Frei (SUI), Mona Mitterwallner (AUT), Jenny Rissveds (SWE) and Laura Stigger (SUI) make up a formidable contingent of podium contenders.
Neff won the title in 2016 and must be considered a favourite after returning to good form in recent weeks. Mitterwallner won it last year and in 2021, but hasn’t had a good season, so her form, while improving, is questionable.
Lill was second to Mitterwallner in Scotland last year in wet conditions and has had a breakout XCO season, shooting her to XCO World Cup podium finishes and into fourth on the UCI World rankings currently. Lill is undoubtedly a title contender and will be hoping that she’s now experienced her share of mechanicals and crashes in major championship events…
Of course, the marathon specialists will also be in the mix and Sofia Villafane Gomez is surely top of that list. The Argentinian seldom loses endurance races in the USA and would likely have added to her 2022 Absa Cape Epic title tally had she been paired with stronger partners in the past two editions.
Her victory at Chequamegon, a prestigious 60km race in Wisconsin this past weekend, confirms her form is sharp. Other Cape Epic winners that will be hungry for the title are Nambia’s Vera Looser and the Swiss pair of Frei and Stigger.
Batten, winner of the Cape Epic in 2022 with Vilafane Gomez, has had a strong year in XCO and will no doubt be keen to earn the marathon crown on home soil. She is backed by a strong USA team that includes Melissa Rohlins, winner of the 2024 edition of Leadville 100, Hanna Otto and Alexis Skarda among others.
A South African has yet to win a UCI Marathon World Champs. In 2010, Burry Stander secured the bronze in the men’s race. In 2019, Robyn de Groot grabbed the bronze and last year, Lill landed the silver medal.
On Sunday, in what is predicted to be cool, dry conditions, the men start at 08h30 and the women at 08h50. Snowshoe is six hours behind South Africa. SuperSport is not answering our emails and it isn’t listed on their broadcast schedule. Apparently there is almost no cellular reception anywhere on the course, so very likely that there will be no live broadcast of the race.
