In addition to the Americas Sprint Championships, another set of continental titles were decided at the weekend. Taking place in Blue Bay, Mauritius, the African crowns over the Sprint distance were settled.
Men’s race
Jawad Abdelmoula was too strong for the rest of the field in the men’s race.
The Moroccan star was the second man out of the water, behind compatriot Badr Siwane. Once through T1, the pair had a gap of 15 seconds over the nearest chasers.
Noah Künz, Jean Gael Laurent L`entete and Mohaned Elshafei headed up the chase pack behind Siwane and Abdelmoula and began to claw back the seconds. However, Abdelmoula put down a big turn to extend the lead. The WTCS medallist added another 10 seconds to the gap and suddenly the lead duo found themselves in a commanding position.
Together, Siwane and Abdelmoula worked expertly over the remainder of the bike.
In the chase, Elshafei fell back, leaving L’entete and Künz to take on the two Moroccan athletes. By the end of the 20km, though, the deficit had reached 40 seconds.
As to be expected from a runner as classy as Abdelmoula, he promptly strode clear to seal his win over the 5km. By the end of the race, he had put 71 seconds into Siwane and won in the most convincing of fashions.
Siwane came home to take the silver medal. Both men, then, will be ones to watch when the World Cup arrives in Morocco for the first time at the start of October.
Künz managed to secure the bronze medal, although L’entente came away as the third ranked African athlete.
Women’s race
Eight athletes lined up to contest the women’s race but the story was really about one person. Vicky Van Der Merwe of South Africa was a dominant force throughout.
Aling with Bridge Theunissen, also of South Africa, she emerged at the front of the field out of T1. The Algerian athlete, Kahina Mebarki, was close behind and threatened to catch the lead pair. However the South African duo simply rode away from their rivals.
By the end of bike, they held a lead of over 40 seconds.
From there, Van Der Merwe made short work of the run. She out-split Theunissen by 79 seconds to take an impressive victory.
In Sunderland in July, Van Der Merwe made her first WTCS start since WTCS Cape Town in 2015. Prior to that, she had raced at WTCS Cape Town in 2014 and WTCS Hamburg in 2012. Indeed, between 2017 and 2022 she had a full five year gap from international short course racing. After a long absence from the top level, she placed 45th in Sunderland. Now, she has added an African title to her comeback achievements.
Van Der Merwe was also the African Junior champion back in 2007. A lot has changed since then, but she still found a way to cross the line first.
In Blue Bay, Theunissen secured with silver medal without any complications. Mebarki then took the bronze medal after an assured performance.
You can view the full results here.
