fotografic: Mafutseni Dups Road Race in Swaziland

The Mozambique Cycle Club was invited to participate in the Mafutseni Dups race in nearby Swaziland on the 21st of May. The race comprised three distances - 80km, 50km and 20km.

We met up the morning of he race at 5am at the Ronil petrol station in Maputo. Our team comprised Eugénio, Kinha, Carlos, Patrick, Vicente, Yazid and Mario (yours truly), with Messias, Antoninho and Marques along in a support capacity. We set off, made quick time to and through the border, and just as well as the indications of the starting point for the race were a tad off.. by 40km in fact! However we quickly reached Mafutseni and were met with a warm welcome by the Swazi cyclists. Little did they know that we were there to take some of their medals.. or at least try!

The main race started at 8am and had a strong police presence as well as race marshals, first aid and was littered with waterpoints along the way. The Mozambique team kept a strong pace right from the start, which caused a few grumbles in the peloton as some were having trouble keeping up along the "flat" route, which comprised of several hills strung together for the first 20km or so. Once at the top we were down to a third of the starters, but the pace didn't relent as now the Swazi's kept the pace high on the front.
A few km's before the turning point Carlos drifted off the front, while the Swazi's took a breather and the rest of the Moz team found itself on the front. An attempt was made to get a breakaway with the whole team, but some miss-communication meant that the group was eventually caught before the turn.
At the 40km turning point one of the Swazi cyclists, Fana, managed to slip off the front which meant that the Mozambique club had to do the chasing and the majority of the Swazis sat in the back. Vincente was keeping a stong pace until his rear derailleur packed up, putting him out of contention. Carlos then took up the batton trying to close the gap to the lone cyclist but with no help from the Swazi's and with everyone tired it was a doomed effort. At around the 50km mark the peloton split as Kinha, Thulani and another Swazi kept a strong pace uphill, while the rest were getting out of breath. However after a breather a chase group formed with Patrick, Mario working well in co-ordinated pulls, with Calvin in tow. At around the 70km mark, just as the Kinha group was catching Fana they were caught by the chasers, with Calvin finally putting in a few pulls to close the last 500m gap. The final 5km to the finish were uneventful with everyone looking around and no-one wanting to commit to any attacks, knowing that the uphill finish would play havoc with the legs. In the end a simultaneous attack by Kinha on the left and Mario on the right annulled themselves as Thulani and Calvin took the centre with the latter's strong sprinter's legs carrying him to the finish line with a nice 10m gap from Thulani, closely followed by Kinha and Mario, and finally Patrick.