Cape Town - Neil MacDonald and Waylon Woolcock sent a strong message to the overall leaders when they sprinted to their third stage win in the Fairbairn Capital/Old Mutual joBerg2c mountainbike race on Tuesday.
After 95 kilometres of racing, the duo crossed the line at the picturesque Glengarry Park in the Kamberg region of KwaZulu-Natal in 3:44:13 to edge out overnight leaders Brandon Stewart and Darren Lill.
David Morison and Stuart Marais showed they were getting stronger as the event progressed, finishing third in 3:45.35 after placing fifth the previous day.
Stewart and Lill held a comfortable lead in the overall standings after more than 21 hours of racing.
Woolcock and MacDonald of the RE:CM team were second, one minute, eight seconds behind, and the MTN-DoItKnow pairing of Max Knox and Adrien Niyonshuti were third, almost 13 minutes further back.
It was a super defensive effort by the Fedgroup Berg and Bush duo of Stewart and Hill, who had to fight back from two mechanical problems and a fall each early on.
They managed to rejoin the leading pack after about 30km, just before the first waterpoint.
Woolcock said he and MacDonald, both road specialists, were confident of winning a sprint finish based on their performances earlier in the tour.
"We tried not to be too hard on ourselves after losing the lead yesterday," said Woolcock.
"We're still pretty much in a learning phase."
He felt Stewart and Lill would be their main opposition going into the business end of the race.
"Sooner or later it will be crunch time and then we'll have to attack," Woolcock said.
"They're certainly not going to hand it to us on a plate."
Team bizhub's Ischen Stopforth and British teammate Catherine Williamson continued their dominance in the women's race by winning the stage in 4:23.14 and further extending their sizeable overall lead.
Erik and Ariane Kleinhans of Fairbairn Capital remained on the winning path in the mixed category, finishing in 4:14.46.
The nine-day, 900km race finishes in Scottburgh on Saturday.