This phenomenal woman has won five gold medals as a swimmer and six as a cyclist over the years.

She is truely an inspiration for everyone.

Watch the videos that was taken at the 2nd Annual Tour de Free State below:

Stage 1:

Stage 2:

My Olympic Experience

As a young girl, my favourite movie was the 1978 film International Velvet by Bryan Forbes. The film follows the story of a young girl, Sarah Brown, who overcomes life’s adversities to fulfill her dream of competing at the Olympic Games. In the film she represents Great Britain in the Equestrian Three Day event and helps her country win the team competition. I watched the film many times over
and it inspired me. I dreamed of one day representing my country at the Olympic Games. Today that dream is realised and my Olympic experience has been somewhat surreal. The London Olympic Games has been everything I dreamt it to be and more!

The Olympic Village

The Village is a little world of it’s own, equipped with everything one could possibly imagine, from gyms, to hairdressers, to dentists, to any kind of food you can possibly imagine.

The most impressive of all is the Food Hall. It is enormous and caters for just about all tastes and ethnic groups, with a selection of food from China, India, Africa, the America’s, Europe and of course Great Britain to name a few.

Although the huge selection of food can make meal choices rather difficult, once you have finally decided what to eat, you never know who you might end up sitting next to. During my stay in the Village I had the opportunity of dining with the likes of Lleyton Hewitt and Sir Chris Hoy to name a few.

Walking around the Village amongst a select field of the World’s best athletes is a surreal experience in itself. You never quite know which famous sports star you might walk past next, but I must admit; in real life, it is rather hard to recognize them.

Our accommodation

Team South Africa stayed in an apartment block called Heritage in the Olympic Village. Team South Africa consists of 125 athletes, small in comparison to the bigger nations like the United States of America, which boasts a total of 529 athletes. As a result, South Africa shared an apartment block with Spain and the Dominican Republic.

My teammates, Robyn de Groot, Joanna Van De Winkel and I shared a two bedroomed apartment, equipped with an on suite bathroom and a small lounge. Our apartment was very comfortable and we quickly made ourselves at home in the Village.

Team South Africa was lucky enough to be located very centrally in the Village. We were situated about 500m from the Main Dining Hall, the Gym, the Village Centre and the Village Hospital. We were also lucky enough to have a little Snack Shack just outside out apartment block entrance. These little Snack Shacks were sporadically placed around the village and had a great selection of ready made sandwiches, salads, muffins, fruit and of course, great coffee.

The Road Race – Sunday 29 July

The height of excitement, hard work and commitment, and the height of disappointment, all in the space of 4 hours! That sums up my Olympic Road Race experience!

Unfortunately no medal for South Africa at the London 2012 Games, but in keeping with the Spirit of the Games, we gave it all on the day! We fought hard in tough conditions, both Robyn and Jo
encountered much bad luck, crashing at critical times in the race, and I’m proud of our efforts!

I felt strong on the day, I raced hard up Box Hill and I thought I had everything under control, until a sneaky break slipped off the front on the final Box Hill descent. Marianne Vos, Lizzie
Armitstead, Olga Zabalinskaya and Shelley Olds got away.

Despite a huge effort by Germany and Italy to chase, the break away was never caught. Shelley Olds punctured out of the break, Mariaane Vos won, Lizzie Armitstead finished 2nd and Olga Zabalinskaya 3rd. I finished 16th in the chasing bunch 27 seconds down on the winner.

The Olympic Women’s Road Race was a great display of women’s cycling at it’s best! A hard, aggressive race and despite the weather conditions, the support out on the London roads was absolutely amazing! I have never experienced such huge crowds supporting a women’s race before. The roads were packed from start to finish, a first for women’s cycling.

The Time Trial – Wednesday 1 August

I finished 24th in the Olympic Individual Time Trial. I had no big expectations; my intention was to use the Time Trial to gain experience for future Olympic Games. Time Trial at this level is a very specialist event. I didn’t do any specific preparation for the Olympic Time Trial, and unfortunately I suffered mechanical issues on the day.

Taking on women who have spent four years and many trips to the wind tunnel to prepare for this event alone, was always going to be a challenge. I have lots of room for improvement and I will use the experience gained in the Time Trial to move forward in a positive way.

Moving Forward

My London 2012 experience has been filled with a whirlwind of emotions, from crying one moment, to laughing the next. Although there have been many ups and downs over the past two weeks, I’ve done my best to soak up the vibe of the Games. What a wonderful experience it has been, I have met some amazing people and at the end of it all, I’m left overwhelmed by a feeling of excitement and thankfulness. I feel inspired!

The feeling of disappointment has quickly been replaced by a feeling of anticipation for what the future holds. I’m confident I have the strength and the talent to medal at the Olympic Games and my Olympic dream is still very much alive. I now have one Olympic Road Race and Time Trial experience in the bank and I look forward to Rio 2016!

A big lesson learnt from my London 2012 experience is that an Olympic medal requires a long-term plan. It takes four years of hard work, commitment and national support to realise this dream. Planning for Rio 2016 has already begun and I won’t give up until I have fulfilled my dream of an Olympic podium.

I’m thankful for this amazing opportunity I’ve been blessed with and the wonderful support and encouragement I’ve received to get this far. Thanks for the ongoing support and encouragement! London 2012 would not have been possible without every one of you! Onwards and upwards to Rio 2016!

Watch the official Tour de Free State video below.

Surprisingly the selectors decided not to select Charise Taylor, the only South African with Olympic experience, but to include van de Winkel and de Groot who have participated in the Tour de Free State.
The launch of the five-year European feeder program in 2009 has seen a greater amount of SA road racing cyclists competing on the world stage. With the sights set on the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, South Africa’s women cyclists have already showed depth in the infancy of the project, earning 3 places in the 2012 London squad.

Racing for the experienced Belgian Lotto Belisol team in Europe for the greater part of the season has seen young women such as Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, Joanna van de Winkel and Robyn de Groot become household names in South Africa following their excellent steady progress over the past three years.

An in-form Moolman-Pasio has been increasing her world ranking with each event and her stage win at the final stage of the Tour de Free State last month, and third place overall in the General Classification, is what secured the third woman rider for Olympic team qualification. Moolman-Pasio was always going to be a hot favourite for team inclusion.

Joanna van de Winkel (30) and Robyn de Groot (29) will join the 26-year old as part of the women’s Olympic road cycling squad. With climbing being one of her attributes, Van de Winkel will be well suited to the road race route that reflects a profile with 14 metres of climbing for every kilometre covered. De Groot, who assisted Moolman-Pasio in her Tour de Free State stage victory, has also gained valuable UCI points towards the women’s ranking and her all-round ability and readiness to sacrifice herself for the team will be a great asset to the cycling team in London.

This will be the largest contingent of cyclists from South Africa ever to participate in the Games since South Africa’s readmission to world sports in 1992. The women cyclists have proven with their remarkable progress that women cyclists in South Africa deserves their own races and that women in sport deserves the same amount of exposure and acknowledgement as their male counterparts. Tour de Free State hosting the women cyclists as the main feature of the race deserves a compliment for their contribution to equalizing the playing field in sport.

In reflection, these are some of the words that spring to mind: family, support, heartache, beauty, passion, lessons, teamwork and success!

Click here to view the Tour de Free State from Ashleigh’s perspective.

Only in its second year, this event managed to obtain international accreditation from the International Cycling Union (UCI) and was selected as the only Olympic qualifying road cycling race in Africa. Thus the vision of the Free State Tourism Authority to draw the focus to the province’s tourism potential through hosting the event had been validated. This year cyclist from 19 nations participated in the event, resulting in international exposure and tapping into a new market for this province.

Eco-orientated tourism has taken on like wild fire across the world. Travellers want to experience the outdoors from a different vantage point. There is no better way than doing it on a bicycle. Access to the local people and places of interest are more direct and tourists have the freedom to experience it and nature on a more intimate level than from a tour bus, dictating where you go, isolating you from the environment and the local inhabitants. Tour de Free State increased the amount of towns involved in this venture from six last year to twelve this year. Bicycles were donated to tour operators and agencies in towns to enable them to be part of the Kasie Tours project, taking tourists to the townships to experience the social life, visit interesting and historical places and experiencing community projects first hand.

An extra bonus of this event is that the Tour de Free State helped small town charities and schools to raise funds and awareness and to promote cycling among learners as more than sixty bicycles were donated to five schools who will be assisted by Cycling South Africa in driving a development programme for young cyclists in the province. The tour also aimed to promote tourism in the beautiful South African province of the Free State with the international exposure it enjoyed. Community races were held in Brandfort, Ficksburg and Clarens.

Lining up at the starting point of the race were four of the world’s top professional teams, Teams HiTech (Sweden Norway, France, Italy and Poland), Lotto Belisol (South Africa and Belgium), RusVelo (Russia and Germany) and DolmansBoel (Netherlands) Riding for these teams were no less than eighteen cyclists ranked in the UCI top-hundred. Forty-six cyclists were UCI ranked and many represented their country’s top ranked cyclists. The prize for these women was points for the Olympic Games, scoring as many as they can to advance their nation’s position. A total amount of €15 932 were given away in prize money. The money was divided between the top fifteen cyclists in each stage of the race.

The organization of this event involved a nightmare of logistics. Over the five days, 3800 meals was served, 1650 beds occupied, 120 organisers, officials and helpers and emergency personnel employed, 34 cars and 8 motorbikes utilised, ten small and 1 big tent went up every day of the race, 800 meters of fencing erected per day and 3250 litres of water consumed, 50 road signs erected per day and 1150 posters distributed. Moving everything along and making sure everything was at the correct location at the correct time was a major feet.

The South Africans riding for Team Lotto Belisol, aiming to qualify a third team member for the Olympic Games, had an up-hill battle as their star cyclist, Ashleigh Moolman Pasio, a former Free Stater and Eunice Girls High learner, were targeted from the start. Team HiTech Products Mistral Home and the Ukrainians, who were competing for the same points in their Olympic quest, combined their strength to keep Lotto Belisol’s domestics from easing Moolman’s way to the finishing line in each and every stage. They were determined to get her to the top though and on the last day they attacked relentlessly with Robyn de Groot taking the lead as they entered the mountainous Golden Gate Nature Reserve giving Moolman in the pack to safe her energy for the chase to the finishing line. The other teams succeeded to isolate Moolman again and she was left in the front crossing the last big climb. She broke away earlier at about 200 meters before the five kilometre mark and this time the South African wearing the Africa jersey crossed the finishing line first to the elation of the crowd supporting her en masse.

The Tour de Free State’s overall winner was Sweden’s Emma Johansson who completed the four stages, totalling 363.5 km in 10 hours, 45 minutes and 11 seconds. Hanka Kupfernagel from Germany, riding for Team RusVelo from Russia came second with only five minutes separating them and third was South Africa’s Ashleigh Moolman Pasio, 26 seconds behind the winner.

The Men’s Open Elite did not get as much attention as the WE2.1, but the country’s top men’s teams were all there to compete. The Tour de Free State introduced a new format for this event. Instead of elapsed time, the standard format for stage races, the 2012 Tour de Free State followed a points system, rewarding the most consistent top daily finishers. It resulted in a dominant performance by top South African men’s professional road cycling outfit, Team Bonitas, who won all four stages and successfully defended Johann Rabie’s overall title at the weekend.

The final stage caused great excitement among spectators as it was a spectacle of speed and tactics. The top 10 riders on General Classification contest a unique pursuit-style race around the Clarens town square. Riders were positioned 45 metres apart with the 10th placed rider at the front and the top-placed rider at the rear. Once a rider was passed, he was eliminated. Rabie won this pursuit stage and earned the 50 points on offer, giving him the highest points total and the overall win.

The Tour de Free State 2012 marked a milestone in cycling in South Africa, Africa and internationally as it was the first UCI Women’s road cycling tour on the African continent. It contributed to the growth of women’s cycling, not only locally but worldwide as it filled a very obvious gap in the UCI Women’s cycling calendar. Thus the tour contributed to the UCI goal of globalizing cycling by promoting racing across all continents. South African women cyclists were exposed to competing at an international level and gaining valuable experience, by making a UCI event more accessible to them.  The Tour de Free State also provided the last opportunity for nations to increase their international rankings before the UCI’s deadline for Olympic qualification on 31 May.

The overall consensus of the cyclists was that the Tour de Free State was well organised and they were impressed with the security and the conduct of the traffic officers escorting them.  Emma Johansson said: “We were here to compete, but we were also aware of the amazingly beautiful landscapes we were cycling through. We enjoyed the scenery which is totally different from what we are accustomed to and that made it an unforgettable experience.”

Issued by Carin van Vuuren

Media Liaison: PelaPela Events and Marketing

Tel: 0832392890

Image: www.cyclenation.co.za

Click here for photo gallery for STAGE 2

Click here for photo gallery for STAGE 3

Click here for photo gallery for STAGE 4

Photos: rika@cyclenation.co.za