With Table Mountain towering above, there are worse places to start a cycling race.
The Cape Town Cycling Tour describes itself as the most beautiful bike race in the world and the route lived up to its billing at the weekend. The Cycling Tour itself is a part of the UCI Golden Tour which consists of seven races and the Cape Town instalment is one of only two outside of Europe.
Taking place around the the Cape Peninsula, the Tour covers 109km of coastal roads.
At the weekend, though, triathlon fans would have spotted a familiar face. Among those racing was WTCS gold medallist Richard Murray.
Murray rode as part of a four man group and ultimately clocked a time of 2:49:38. Over the course of the route, the riders gained over 1000m of elevation. As such, Murray’s time represented a good showing for what was a training effort as opposed to a full race for him.
The winner of the Tour was Chris Jooste, riding for TufoBMC, as he completed the course in 2:36:14.
Having been born in South Africa and represented the country for much of his career, Murray has a close affinity to the land. Whilst wearing the South African tri-suit, he enjoyed a number of successful seasons. Indeed, over the course of his WTCS career, he has won seventeen WTCS medals, three of which have been gold, with his most recent WTCS win coming in Leeds in 2018.
As of March 2022, he switched his nationality to the Netherlands. This came after marrying fellow triathlete Rachel Klamer. Together they have the possibility of becoming the first married couple to compete in the same Mixed Team Relay at the Olympic Games.
Murray has not, at the time of writing, yet won a WTCS medal for the Netherlands. Last season, though, he finished 7th at WTCS Leeds and so has been in the mix.
Most recently, Murray raced at WTCS Abu Dhabi where he finished 14th. At this early stage in the season, his form is therefore looking good and we will see if he can add any further WTCS medals this year.
