{"id":30319,"date":"2014-04-14T18:35:09","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T16:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/2014\/04\/perry-rules-emperors-palace-race\/"},"modified":"2014-04-14T18:35:09","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T16:35:09","slug":"perry-rules-emperors-palace-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/perry-rules-emperors-palace-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Perry rules Emperors Palace race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former national time-trial champion James Perry showed his natural flair when he launched a solo attack with kilometres to go to take an unchallenged victory at the Emperors Palace Classic in Johannesburg on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The 34-year-old Team Abantu rider claimed his maiden win in the 102km feature race, which passed by OR Tambo International Airport, in 2:17:55.<\/p>\n

Calvin Beneke (Team EuropcarSA) and defending champion David Maree (Team Abantu) finished more than 30 seconds back in second and third respectively.<\/p>\n

Perry said the racing started at a furious pace, with Team Abantu putting two of its riders – Reynard Butler and Myles van Musschenbroek – into the first break of the day.<\/p>\n

“This put Team Bonitas under pressure and we let them chase for about 50 kilometres.<\/p>\n

“I noticed that they were starting to tire just before the break was caught, so I told my team to start the attack.”<\/p>\n

This resulted in a select group of about 15 riders going clear with about 30km to go and chasing down the two leaders, Van Musschenbroek and James Fourie (Team EuropcarSA).<\/p>\n

“Just before we caught them, with about 12 kilometres to go, I launched my final attack and nobody was able to follow me,” said Perry.<\/p>\n

“So I managed to ride solo to the finish due to the efforts of my team.”<\/p>\n

He said they had originally planned a sprint finish for teammate Nolan Hoffman – who had won the points jersey in the Bestmed Tour de Boland and Mzansi Tour in recent weeks – but mechanicals had put paid to this strategy.<\/p>\n

“I had the best legs on the day, so the weight fell on my shoulders.”<\/p>\n

Perry rode himself into form during last week’s Mzansi Tour and also took the Wilro 100 Lions Cycle Challenge earlier this month.<\/p>\n

In the women’s race, Lise Olivier (Time Freight-Velo Life) held her nerve to win a small bunch sprint to the line.<\/p>\n

Olivier – who was runner-up in the Tour de Boland after winning the final stage – crossed the line in 2:47:40, one second ahead of Anriette Schoeman (Africa Silks-Bestmed) and An-Li Kachelhoffer (Activate Drinks).<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Ian Pienaar won the 40km men’s mountain bike race, which shadowed the airport runways, in 1:39:37. Victory in the women’s event went to 2013 national junior marathon champion Jessica Alcock (Team Jeep SA) in 2:00:54.<\/p>\n

\"Team<\/p>\n

Team Abantu’s James Perry celebrates his maiden win at the Emperors Palace Classic in Johannesburg on Sunday. Photo: Peter Morey<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n

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Former national time-trial champion James Perry showed his natural flair when he launched a solo attack with kilometres to go to take an unchallenged victory at the Emperors Palace Classic in Johannesburg on Sunday. The 34-year-old Team Abantu rider claimed his maiden win in the 102km feature race, which passed by OR Tambo International Airport, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3332],"tags":[4587,4588,5123,4693,4971],"class_list":{"0":"post-30319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-johannesburg-south-africa","7":"tag-emperors","8":"tag-palace","9":"tag-perry","10":"tag-race","11":"tag-rules","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}