Double gold again for Thiel siblings

Mountain biking
The small Namibian team made clean sweeps in the absence of South Africa, who did not enter a junior team.
Andrew Poolman
  • 19 Hours Ago

The tour de force by the Namibian Cycling Federation's junior team at the African Mountain Biking Championship continued from Saturday's short-course format into Sunday's cross-country titles.

Brother and sister Marco Thiel and Rosemarie Thiel will return to Windhoek as continental gold medal winners in both of these junior races in Cote d'Ivoire's capital city Abidjan.

Sean Lowe was second in the junior's men's cross-country race over four laps on Sunday, followed by two more countrymen, Christiaan van der Westhuizen (bronze) and Mike Baartman (fourth).

Marco Thiel and Rosemarie Thiel follow in the success of their respective predecessors Roger Surén and Delsia Janse van Vuuren, who also won African championship gold medals before outgrowing the UCI junior (under-18) category. Both Surén and Janse van Vuuren are currently on contract with professional cycling and mountain biking teams in Europe.

South Africa did not enter a junior team and was only represented in the elite men's and women's categories in Abidjan.

In Saturday’s short-course races, Rosemarie Thiel took the junior women’s gold while her brother Marco Thiel won the junior men’s race.

After two laps, Namibia dominated the first four positions in the junior men's race. Christiaan van der Westhuizen (silver) was followed by Sean Lowe (bronze), while Mike Baartman fought back from a slip to finish fourth.

Hans du Toit, national cycling coach, commented: “Thank you Namibia for the support, and thank you to the Namibia National Olympic Committee for giving us this opportunity.”