Victor Cudjoe out-sprinted his competition to win the Granfondo Ghana Cycle Race
Victor Cudjoe over the weekend won the first Granfondo Ghana Cycling race. The 100km race attracted cyclists from Nigeria, Togo and other African countries with 1,192meters of hill climbs across Adenta, Dowoda, Agomeda, Somanya, Apirede, Adukrom, Akropong, Mamfe, Aburi and ending back again at Adenta.
The first half of the race was fraught with aggressive riding in the peloton with one attack after another, and riders eager to form a breakaway from the peloton but every move was tracked down and blocked almost immediately.
The breakaway eventually formed on the Apirede climb but the peloton stayed together as they hit the lower slopes of the second category climb. When the race hit the steepest sections of the climb averaging 11% for 2km, the race was then split with riders littered across the entire hill.
The stand out performers were: Maxwell Doku of FCG Cycling Club; Prince Quaye of TBT Cycling Club; and Abdul Malik from Nigeria. They were the strongest and formed a breakaway opening a gap of 1min 20sec on the chasing group behind. However, a few kilometres down the road, Prince Quaye of TBT couldn’t follow the pace setting of Maxwell Doku and Abdul Malik, and was dropped from the trio.
At 20km to the end of the race, Abdul Malik was the next to fall off leaving Maxwell Doku as the sole leader of the race at this point. Behind the duo there was a furious chase from a group of 4 riders including pre-race favourite Abdul Rahman of Quick step Cycling Club, Victor Cudjoe of Gladiators Pro Cycling Club, Prince Kudufia of Team Epic Cycling Club and Francis Owusu of River Park Cycling Club working hard to close the gap rapidly on the solo leader and he was caught at 14km towards the end of the race. At this point the race became animated and it was a cat and mouse game as Prince Kudufia, 17 year old from Team Epic Cycling Club attacked the now leading group of 5 opening a 5 sec gap and pulling away with Victor Cudjoe and Abdul Rahman.
The two chasers worked together to bring him back and on the home stretch it became a bunch sprint as Victor Cudjoe, the 30 year old Policeman riding for Gladiators Pro Cycling Club showed his class and out sprinted the 5 riders to cross the line in a time of 2hr 47min 41sec to finish the demanding course in an average speed of 35.78km/h. Abdul Rahman and Prince Kudufia finished second and third respectively wrapping up the podium places.
In the Master’s category (over 50years), Erick Moreau, a 57 year old Frenchman came first in a time of 3hr 10min 28sec and in the Women’s Category Amma Kensema Adade was the first woman to cross the line in a time of 4hr 27min 21sec.
For their prizes, the winner received a cash prize of GHS5,000, second and third receiving GHS1,500 and GHS1,000 respectively. The First Female rider received a cash prize of GHS2000 and GHS1,000 went to the winner of the over 50years. There were also cash prize of GHS200 each for 4th to 10th positions.