South Africa’s Alan Hatherly got his competitive 2023 racing season started on a winning note when he outsprinted Swiss mountain biking legend, Nino Schurter and French fast-man Victor Koretzky to claim victory at the King Price Trailseeker Banhoek marathon in South Africa on Saturday 28 January. Here’s how he did it – with finish-sprint photos.
The strongest field ever assembled for a Trailseeker event took to the 63km route that incorporated the popular Banhoek Trails network, starting and finishing at Plaisir de Merle Wine Estate and weaving through Boschendal and Bethlehem Farm. With a high volume of singletrack and 1700 metres of vertical ascent, it was always going to be a challenging route.
At 25km in, Hatherly (Cannondale Factory Racing), Schurter (SCOTT-SRAM), Victor Koretzky (Specialized Factory Racing), Matt Beers (Toyota Specialized), Gert Heyns (Valley Electrical Titan Racing), Tristan Nortje (Toyota Specialized) and Marco Joubert (Imbuko Type Dev) formed a small lead group after the first major climb. By 40km completed, the group had shed Heyns and Joubert with Nortje a little off the back, leaving a four-man pack – Schurter, Hatherly, Beers and Koretzky to decide the podium places.
Here’s how the race played out from Hatherly’s perspective:
“Everyone was keen to test their early-season form, especially with Tankwa Trek around the corner and Cape Epic not too far away. The pace was really high from the beginning. The descents were the riskiest because Nino and Victor were really pushing the descents hard, maybe trying to get the Strava KOMs or something like that. (Ed’s note: They did indeed secure many Strava KOM’s between them – 22 in total!).
“That’s where we lost a lot of the field early on, the descents where the speed was really high. At around halfway in there were just four of us left – me, Nino, Victor and Matt. I think Matt made a mistake on one of the descents and went a bit off course and he ended up chasing quite a bit of the last part of the race.
“In the second half we just emptied the tank on the climbs but kept it steady, no attacks. None of us are super sharp yet, which is to be expected this early in the season where we have mostly been focusing on building endurance and base.
“I had bit of an issue with my Garmin and couldn’t see what distance was remaining for the last hour or so. It was also a different route to what I had raced at this event two years ago, so I was very unsure of the finish approach. I just kept myself ready to sprint or react if the others started to attack.
“As we got near the event venue, I could see the car park and finish barrier. We all eased up a bit and started looking at each other, roadie-sprint style. This drop in pace allowed Matt to close in on us. I didn’t want to take the chance of him going straight by and taking a flyer, so I just pulled the trigger and went for it.
“It was a full sprint down the road. But then there was a sharp right turn, much sharper than we all anticipated and we all locked brakes and almost piled up into each other! From there it was a short dash of about 80 metres to the finish line and I managed to take the win.
“I’m happy with that performance. It was a good balance for me. I tried to play it smart. At points it was difficult being third wheel on the descents because of the dust from Nino and Victor. I was getting stretched a bit and chasing out of every descent to get back on again. I was burning a few matches there that I wasn’t planning to. But I didn’t want to get involved in the battle between Nino and Victor on the descents. They seemed to have a mission between them to smash each other on the descents.
“I kept it safe and hung on a bit closer on the final descents so that I could be in the mix for the sprint. I had the energy in the end and am happy I was able to start my sprint at the right time,” said Hatherly.
Hatherly’s winning time was 2:32:20, less than second clear of Shurter. Koretzky secured third place, followed by Beers and Nortje respectively rounding out the top five.
“It was an exciting battle to the end. Unfortunately, all of us were sliding around the last corner. It was fun. None of us really knew where the route would be going so it’s difficult to have a strategy when you don’t know how long the climbs are. We went hard from the start but the last corner was a bit of a mess for me,” said Schurter afterwards.
Unlike the men’s race, which was extremely tight, the women’s race saw South African Candice Lill take a dominant victory. Her time of 3:02:33 was more than five minutes faster than runner-up, Mauritian national champion, Kim Le Court (Efficient Infiniti Insure). Denmark’s Malene Degn (LaPierre Mavic) finished third, with South African Tiffany Keep (Valley Electrical Titan Racing) and former Brazilian national XCO champion, Giuliana Salvini Morgen (Sense Factory Racing), rounding out the top five places respectively.
For full results, click here.
