Beyond the Finish Line – What the Cape Epic’s New Elite Women’s Format Really Means

dirtyheart
2 days ago
5 min read

The Absa Cape Epic has long been regarded as one of the ultimate tests in mountain biking. Its tagline, “The race that measures all,” speaks to an ethos built on endurance, resilience and the shared challenge of conquering one of the toughest stage races in the world.

With the recent announcement of a new Elite Women’s race format for 2026, the event once again shows its willingness to evolve. We believe progress and change are essential for any sport to grow and this move shows that the race organisers are once again at the forefront of that evolution.

The Traditional Format - Equality Through Distance

Historically, one of the most powerful statements in women’s mountain bike stage racing, and particularly at the Cape Epic, has been that elite women raced the same distance as the men. The same routes. The same mountains. The same unforgiving terrain.

This parity of distance symbolised equality in its purest form, women lining up against the same course, under the same conditions, earning their place in a race defined by its brutality.

But equal distance does not mean equal load.

Because elite women, on average, complete stages slower than elite men, they often spend a significantly higher percentage of time in the saddle each day. More hours racing means greater accumulated fatigue, longer exposure to heat and terrain and critically, less time available for recovery before doing it all again the next morning.

In a stage race, recovery is not a luxury, it is performance. And this is where the traditional model, while equal on paper, may not always have been equal in physiological reality.

Understanding Cape Epic’s Objective

According to the Cape Epic’s announcement, the move to parity in race time rather than distance is rooted in extensive research and stakeholder engagement.

The objective is clear:

• Faster, more competitive racing

• Smaller time gaps

• Increased strategic depth

• Greater broadcast visibility for elite women

By designing dedicated women’s routes that aim to align winning times with those of the elite men, the organisers hope to reduce the excessive time women spend racing each day, thereby improving recovery, intensifying competition and allowing athletes to perform closer to their peak across all eight days.

This also opens up the possibility for growth in the elite women’s field, as more top-level riders may see the Cape Epic as a more viable addition to their racing calendars due to reduced daily race time.

Another major motivation is media exposure. Currently, faster men’s racing often dominates live coverage. They are first across the line, first through key points and naturally become the primary narrative. Aligning finish times creates an opportunity for elite women’s racing to be more present, more visible and more central to the broadcast story.

These are meaningful, well-considered goals and ones that genuinely aim to elevate elite women’s racing.

The Obvious Advantages

There are real and important positives to this evolution.

Less time in the saddle means more effective recovery, which can translate into higher performance levels, tighter racing and more aggressive tactics. Closer time gaps often make for more exciting stage racing, more attacks, more changes in momentum and more stories for fans to follow.

From an athlete wellbeing perspective, aligning race duration acknowledges biological and physiological differences without diminishing performance or professionalism. Instead, it reframes equality around competitive conditions rather than identical distances.

In theory, this also strengthens the media product. If elite women are finishing closer to elite men, their racing becomes easier to integrate into live coverage, podium moments, storytelling and sponsor exposure.

All of this points towards a future where elite women are not a secondary narrative, but a parallel headline.

The Media Question - Visibility vs Dilution

While closer finish times may allow more shared spotlight moments, there is another side to the media conversation.

Dedicated women’s routes mean dedicated race stories happening in different places, at different times, on different terrain. This could enrich the event, but it could also fragment it. There is a real possibility that rather than amplifying coverage, this could dilute it, with fewer sustained narratives, fewer repeated visual reference points and more competition for limited broadcast focus.

The question is not whether women will gain more visibility, but how that visibility will be shaped, sustained and prioritised within a complex, multi-route event.

This is something only the race itself will answer.

Beyond the Elites - What About the Rest of the Women’s Field

One of the most emotionally important aspects of this discussion lies outside the elite category.

Women fought long and hard to have equivalent categories to men at the Cape Epic, not symbolic ones, but fully recognised racing classes. Those categories represented belonging. They represented a statement, women are not a variation of the race, women are the race.

Now, elite women will ride something fundamentally different.

While this change only affects the elite category, it inevitably reshapes the meaning of parity. For the first time, women’s racing at the Epic becomes structurally unequal again, not in value, but in form.

For an event whose identity is deeply tied to shared suffering, shared routes and collective endurance, this is a philosophical shift. The Cape Epic has always been about everyone measuring themselves against the same mountain. Now, for one group of riders, that mountain changes.

This does not make the new model wrong. But it does make it significant. Perhaps this too will evolve as the new format takes shape and the 2026 race plays out.

An Evolution Still in Motion

The Cape Epic’s ethos is steeped in its hardness. In its myth. In its reputation. In the idea that simply finishing already places you in rare company. Change is the cornerstone of growth and elite women’s racing deserves structures that support peak performance, sustainable careers and greater global visibility.

What we are not yet convinced of is that this change is fully fleshed out or fully realised, and that actually excites us. We are eager to see how the race continues to shape itself over the next few editions.

We see 2026 as a first iteration, an opening chapter, not a final destination. We are genuinely excited to witness how it unfolds, what it reveals and how the race continues to evolve in response to what is learned.

Whether this model ultimately strengthens the years of momentum women’s stage racing has fought to build, or whether it introduces new tensions around equality and identity, is something that only time, athletes and fans can decide.

The road, in our view, is not fully laid out yet, but we are ready to go on this adventure, mountains and all...