Sprinters hoping to win the Itec Connect Dome2Dome elite race on Sunday might just have to work a little bit harder than they expected. And the rider to blame for the unnecessary suffering will likely be Kevin Evans (MTN-Energade).

Evans who is more known for his mountain-biking abilities – he is also riding in the Silverstar Casino Mountain Bike Classic on Saturday - has been especially drafted into the MTN road team for the race.  His orders are very simple: “Make them suffer.”

That is, of course, aimed at the sprinters of Neotel, Medscheme and the House of Paint.

Evans relishes the challenge, especially knowing that the Dome2Dome is one of Gauteng’s hard races and it’s well known fact that mountain bikers live and die by the motto: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

Two years ago at the Worlds View Challenge in Pietermaritzburg Evans surprised some of the international professionals when he got away in a break and simply stayed away. It took some real hard racing to catch up with Evans and stay with him to the end.

In the end the “Mountie” finished 4th overall.

According to Evans he is paying the price for those heroics.  “Nowadays the roadies are watching me very closely and are not prepared to let me get away in a breakaway for too long.”

Evans is not too worried about the fact that the last time he competed in a road race was early July during the Knysna Oyster Festival. “I do most of my training on the road, so it’s not a big thing to ride competitively in a road race.”

Listening to Evans it seems that he wants to approach the Dome2Dome as an elimination race. Every time there is bump in the road he is going to try and make the pace hard - and if everything goes according to plan one or two riders will be left behind.

“Hopefully in the end there will only be a small group of riders left to contest the final sprint.”

If Evans succeeds in doing that the safe money will be to bet on Jay Thomson (MTN-Energade) winning. The other riders to watch in this scenario will be Hanco Kachelhoffer and Nic White (Medscheme).

But if the plan does not work nothing will be lost to the MTN-Energade team because in Christoff van Heerden and Juan van Heerden they have two capable sprinters who can win a bunch sprint.

Actually a bunch sprint could be very exciting because Van Heerden and Van Heerden and Nolan Hoffman (Neotel), as well as Arran Brown (Medscheme) are the young guns of SA cycling. They are in the process of fighting it out for Malcolm Lange (Medscheme)’s mantle of as the King of Sprint in South Africa.

Further information on the Itec Connect Dome2Dome Cycling Spectacular as well as information on affected roads is available on www.dome2dome.co.za