Robert the hunted at Mzansi Tour MyZA

Argentine’s Mauro Richeze (Nippo-De Rosa) outsmarted South Africa’s foremost sprinters to win the third stage of the UCI 2.2 Mzansi Tour.

The day belonged to the international riders who made the most of the tricky technical final few hundred metres.

Richeze’s winning time for the stage from Witbank to Mamelodi (147km) was 3 hours 19 minutes and 51 seconds.

Germany’s Lucas Liss (Rad-Net Rosa) finished second with SA’s Nolan Hoffman (Tasol-GT) third.

The Argentine was relieved to have a stage victory under his belt. “I owed it to my team to get a good result and today everything played out exactly as it should. I knew that I would be in with a chance to win the stage if there was a bunch sprint.”

Hoffman was content with his third place, but hoped for more. “The last few months my main focus was to be at my best for the World Track Championship, so my preparation for Mzansi Tour was far from satisfying.

“I was hoping, not expecting, to get at least one podium finish in the tour. It is certainly a good confidence booster.”

The main break of the day was launched by Nippo’s Fukushima and then joined by three others, SA’s Neil MacDonald (FedGroup-Itec), Portugal’s Jose Goncalves (La Pomme Marseille) and Japan’s Shinichi Fukushima (Nippo-De Rosa).

Goncalves attacked just before Cullinan proving too strong for Fukushima which left him on his own over the last 25km.

It took an organised effort from the chasing teams to catch the flying Goncalves. He was caught with approximately 5km to go.

Robert Hunter (South African National Team) retains the overall lead, 5 minutes and 50 seconds ahead of Julien Antomarchi (La Pomme Marseille), with Fortunato Baliani (Nippo-De Rosa) a further six seconds back.