Publications
Partners
Cape Town - Two-time Olympian Gillian Sanders wrapped up her 2017 season with victory in the ATU Sprint Triathlon African Cup at the weekend.
According to the Team SA website, the race contested a 750m swim, 20km cycle and 5km run, which was held in Dakhla, Morocco.
Sanders outsprinted Czech Republic's Petra Kurikova to win in 67 minutes 02 seconds - winning by a margin of four seconds.
This saw her banking some valuable ranking points ahead of next year's 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia.
Taking the final podium place was Britain's Hanna Howitt in 68:23.
"I just wanted to test out some things I've been working on," London-based Sanders told Team SA.
"I did most of the work on the bike, tried a few breakaways and managed to get the group down to five.
"The purpose of the race was for me to get a hard race in my legs.
"I had no idea how fit I was. In hindsight maybe I should've tried to go harder sooner but was afraid of blowing up on so little training so I just backed my sprint and managed to get the win. It was fun and a nice little leg-sharpener for the off-season."
Sanders is now off to Portugal and Spain next week for some warm-weather training till the end of the month.
Her first big event of the new year will be the World Cup on 'home' turf in Cape Town early in February.
It was fun doing an off season race in Dakhla,Western Sahara over the weekend, testing out a few things I've been working on & getting a bit of sunshine too ?? pic.twitter.com/MoFXYax0H8
— Gillian Sanders (@gillcurrsanders) December 5, 2017
