Haley Smith up to fourth overall at Cape Epic

Haley Smith, along with teammate Hayley Preen, are steadily moving up the standings at the 2026 Cape Epic. After stage two, the South African-Canadian duo moved up one spot to sit fourth and closing in on a podium position.

Stage two was a day of upheaval, with technical challenges impacting some riders, and being avenged by others. After struggling to keep air in tires on the first full stage, star-team Sam Gaze and Luca Schwarzbauer were keen on redemption, forcing a break and claiming a stage win.

Women’s Race: Haley and Hayley move up, Courtney pushes leaders

Marathon world champion Kate Courtney and teammate Gret Seiwald started stage two intent on putting pressure on race leaders Candice Lill and Alessandra Keller of Thomus Maxon Sabi Sabi. It was Rosa van Doorn and Vera Looser (Buff-BH Efficient Infiniti) that ended up in trouble. Van Doorn punctured after the first climb and struggled to fix the puncture. The duo pushed on only to find out the Buff men’s team had taken the spare wheel van Doorn had at the first tech zone. Should be an interesting dinner in the Buff-BH team lodging tonight.

Buff-BH’s bad luck benefited Haley Smith and Hayley Preen (ChemChamp Huncomb), who move up to fourth overall. The Hayley’s are now less than a minute behind a podium position, Symbtech.net’s Margot Moschetti and Claudia Peretti.

Courtney and Seiwald’s efforts to unseat Keller and Lill ended up with the opposite effect. The duo were dropped with less than 10km to go and forced to settle for second.

“Once we had established a gap, we pushed pretty hard to the finish,’ Keller said. “We wanted to put in as much time as we could.”

Men’s Race: Gaze and Schwarzbauer avenge stage one mechanicals

After struggling with flat tires on the first full day of racing, Sam Gaze and Luca Schwarzbauer were intent on avenging their bad luck. The two started attacking in the latter stages of the day’s racing, repeatedly putting in big digs to whittle down the front group.

“The fun level was high but the suffer level was even higher,” a delighted Schwarzbauer said. “When you go on an all-out attack and it doesn’t work it is the most terrible thing. We attacked like that…