Crash victim Gaze pulls out of Cape Epic

Cape Town - No one ever wants to leave a race before the race is done. That’s never been truer than on Wednesday, when Investec-songo-Specialized rider Sam Gaze pulled out of the Absa Cape Epic.

According to the bikehub website, a crash that Gaze experienced during Stage 1 of the race continued to affect him and prompted his early departure.

Gaze, who teamed this year with defending champion, Jaroslav Kulhavy, crashed during the first day of racing, but soldiered on to finish.

Feeling strong, Gaze returned for a second day of competition and raced well for the first half hour, but soon began to experience the effects of the prior day’s crash. Ultimately, he finished 28 minutes behind the leaders on the day.

After another solid day of rest, Gaze decided to toe the line on Wednesday morning for Stage 3, but soon thereafter decided to exit the event.

Though off of the bike for the remainder of the week, Gaze is staying in South Africa to support the team through the remainder of the race.

New Zealand's Gaze, who won the Cape Town Cycle Tour on March 10, took to his Instagram account to post a picture of his cracked helmet.

View this post on Instagram

This is a photo of my helmet from the crash, it was a little bigger then I made out as I wasn’t prepared to leave this race without a result. Yesterday afternoon my condition got worse, following with issues this morning and the call has been made to pull me out of the race as I rode the end of stage 1 and stage 2 with a diagnosed concussion. I’m devastated, I was racing for my Mum this week and it hurts even more not to finish it off for her. Time to go recover, and when I am cleared then I’ll be back. Thank you everyone for your support.

A post shared by Kid From The Long White Cloud (@samuelgaze) on Mar 19, 2019 at 10:25pm PDT