Willie van Eck and Zandri Strydom are the Elite Men and Women’s Mpumalanga Enduro Series Champions for 2021 after dominant performances in the third and final round at MTO Lowveld Trails, White River at the weekend.
Van Eck (21) won all five stages of the final round, held on selected MTO Lowveld Trails to secure the overall victory. Strydom (20) was the only female entrant at the last leg, but was in no way complacent as she finished second overall on two stages, fourth on two stages and fifth on the other stage.
Curiously, Van Eck’s bike, an XCO hardtail, has a damaged frame so he has raced all three rounds of the Mpumalanga Enduro Series on three different borrowed bikes.
Traditionally an XCO racer, Van Eck won Round 1 in April on the same trails network, then finished fifth at Round 2 in Nelspruit in June, which doubled as the second leg of the 2021 South African National Enduro Series. He started the final round on Saturday with a slim five-point lead over Sam Bull, but Bull wasn’t able to make the final round, leaving Van Eck with a relatively simple task of just completing the event.
What seemed simple though wasn’t, as Van Eck sustained a deep gash on his finger two days before the final event, which required numerous stitches; but he was fortunately able to compete without too much trouble.
“I have always been an XCO racer, so this is the first time I have tried Enduro racing. I thought I’d try it for fun, but I have enjoyed it so much. I’m definitely going to do more Enduro racing in future,” said Van Eck, who manages the trails maintenance and building at MTO Trails Lowveld.
“Even though the field was smaller at the last round, I still gave it my all. In an XCO race you can see who the riders are to watch for, but in Enduro you don’t know until you see the results, so you have to give it everything on every race run. I feel like it was a good accomplishment to win the provincial series and I am keen to see if I can achieve success on a more national level now,” smiled Van Eck.
Strydom, who races for Team Nano Time, was unchallenged during the three-round series and must surely be considered one of the favourites to claim the South African Elite Women’s title at the national showpiece in the North West province in November.
Third place overall went to 13-year-old Gabriel Burns. The impressive Sub-Junior was second to Van Eck on three of the five stages and just 1:17.0 down in the final accumulated time. Matteo Damilano was the second Elite male and fourth overall.
The other category winners at the final round were Riku De Lange (Youth Men), Gideon Lourens (Junior Men), John Carter (Sub-Veteran Men), Sean Badenhorst (Master Men) and Kim Badenhorst (eBike).
Final Round Leading Overall Results:
1 Willie van Eck 14min 26.5sec
2 Zandri Strydom 15:33
3 Gabriel Burns 15:43.5
4 Matteo Damilano 16:04.4
5 Riku de Lange 17:07
The scheduled five-round Mpumalanga Enduro Series had to be trimmed down to three rounds due to the winter Covid lockdown regulations imposed by the South African government. Here are the series winners of each category (note – only riders with a CSA Membership are eligible for provincial series titles):
Men
Elite: Willie van Eck
Junior: Bartel Herbst
Youth: Riku de Lange
Sub-Junior: Juandre Pretorius
Sprog: Adriaan Reyneke
Sub-Veteran: Christopher Pearton
Veteran: Craig Gebhardt
Master: Trent Sinclair
eBikes: Sean Badenhorst
Women
Elite: Zandri Strydom
Junior: Bernice van Wyk & Talia Behr
Sub-Junior: Arielle Behr
Sub-Veteran: Wendy Odendaal
Veteran: Corne Ackermann
For full series results, visit this website.
