'Hardest race I've done' - Stander

SA SPORTS PICTURE AGENCY

SAs Burry Stander in action in the mens mountain bike race at Hadleigh Farm in Essex yesterday. Stander finished fifth.

Stander was meant to give Team South Africa the perfect finish to the Olympic Games. Instead his fans were taken on a roller-coaster ride with as many ups and downs as the course on which he raced to fifth place.

The 24-year-old overcame a slow start to the men’s mountain bike race to pace the lead group of five riders for most of the seven-lap race.

In that time he was able to put pressure on his fellow leaders, but Swiss World Cup champion and former under-23 world champion Nino Schurter, and the current world champion, Jaroslav Kulhavy, were always the dominant pair in the group.

When a strong surge from the Swiss broke the group up with just less than two laps left, Stander and Spanish veteran Jose Hermida could not go with the move and completed the race by sprinting for fourth, with the Spaniard claiming the first position outside the medals.

Up front Schurter was beaten in the sprint by Stander’s teammate on the international circuit, Kulhavy, with Italian Marco Fontana getting the bronze medal.

As the world’s fourth-ranked rider, Stander lined up on the front row but was slow away from the start and was swallowed up by a mass of sprinting riders, leaving him sitting in 19th position at one point.

As the pace settled he moved quickly through the field, and at the end of the third lap he had integrated into the lead group of five.

From there it was a case of surge and counter-surge as the five riders tested each other until Schurter put in the race-winning move on the penultimate lap, and Hermida and Stander dropped away, leaving the three up front to fight for the medals. “I knew it was |going to be hard and it was by far the hardest race I have ever done,” said an exhausted Stander after the finish.

“The guys were really fast off the start and they were pushing each other around… that it is not my strength so I got a bit swallowed up at the beginning.

“But I got back to the front quite quick, and all I can say is I gave it my all. I was in the best shape I could have possibly been in and nothing went wrong.

“On the third lap I tried to push Nino a bit and take it up, but they guys obviously had something left in the tank. They were waiting for the last two laps.

“This is the Olympic Games and you have to take your chances.

“You have to take it to the guys and make them work for it. I raced above my level today and gave it everything I had, but I am absolutely shattered now.

“Obviously it is a huge disappointment and it has been four years preparing for this. I had a chance but there were 10 guys in with a chance of winning this race, and the racing was close and hard.

“They were just a little bit too good for me today.”