Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott) welcomes with exhaltation his 2018 South-African National Champion title. After three times in which the 2018 Tour Down Under winner have stepped the podium, finally Impey adds this victory to his list after a successful January. “It feels so good to win – begins the new South-African champion – I have lost a few championships after some bad luck so it was about time luck was in my favour. It is a nice relief to finally get this jersey, you always have these races that you want to win and finally I can tick off this one“, in this way conveying all his satisfaction.
“The race split quite easily – continues Impey – I put it in the gutter and we rode across to the leaders in a group of about 12 guys and there was six or seven Dimension-Data riders there. One guy touched my wheel and actually brought down four of them (Dimension-Data riders) and left just four of us to ride across. When I saw they were coming back at the end, around 60 kilometres to go, I just put my head down and went and I was able to take a couple of guys with me and encouraged them to work“, exlpaining the way things went down.
Impey ended his speech by explaining his state of mind over the last kilometers: “I knew once we were just three out front, from that Jason had had a good ride but was a bit spent and that Jacques isn’t really known for sprinting so I was fairly confident I could take the victory then“.