Young to defend his Roof of Africa title again

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  • The six-time champion is expected to once again pull his magic this time around
  • A total of 12 local riders will be competing in the silver, bronze, and iron categories

NTHAKO MAJORO & LEBOELA MOTOPI

MASERU—Sixth-time winner and defending champion of the Motul Roof of Africa, Wade Young of South Africa, is expected to lead the pack as one of the toughest biking races in the world takes off on November 30. The Red Bull Hard Enduro legend rides a Factory Sherco. A total of 465 riders from 17 countries across the globe have registered for the 54th edition of this international biker’s competition, nicknamed The Mother of Hard Enduro.

At least 12 local riders will be competing in the silver, bronze, and iron categories; none will compete in the elite gold section. One rider will compete in the silver category, while 10 are expected to compete in the bronze section, with one in the iron category.

The African continent will be represented by South Africa, Namibia, eSwatini, and Kenya. Other international riders from outside Africa will be drawn from Iceland, Austria, the USA, Japan, Fiji, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and Australia.

The spectacular three-day show of hard riding that normally brings traffic to a standstill in Maseru will commence with the usual “Round the Houses” component, which starts and finishes at the Maseru Club.

The race would then proceed straight to the time trial. On December 1, the competition will start from Thaba Bosiu to Setibing or Lekhalong la Baroa, and on December 2, from Lekhalong la Baroa to Thaba Bosiu, where it will end. “We are expecting our visitors (foreign riders) to register on November 29, and the race will start on November 30 with a round of houses,” said Lesotho Off-Road Association’s (LORA) Public Relations Officer, Bereng Ntaote.

Ntaote told a press briefing in Maseru on Tuesday: “Round the Houses is like a culture of the Roof of Africa. “As usual, the Round of the Houses will start and finish at Maseru Club. The competitors will thereafter go straight for a time trial.” The Chairman of LORA, Mopeli Litabe, said the first edition of the annual event was held in 1967.

“Since then, the race has been held every year, with the exception of two times.” The first time the event was not held since its inception was in 1998 due to the then-prevailing political turmoil in Lesotho, and the second time was in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted all sporting activities across the globe.

“We have a new addition, which is adventure, and we are proud that we are going to have 50 competitors in that particular section, which will bring the total of the competitors to 465,” Litabe said. After Lesotho received some international funding in the early 1960s, a road builder called Bob Phillips was involved in building a road up the Moteng track from Butha Buthe to ease access to the inner regions of Lesotho.

As the road neared completion, Phillips told his friend Louis Duffet of the RAC that he had built the world’s worst road.  Duffet took it to the Sports Car Club, where John Buttress was tasked with organising a rally crossing Duffet’s Moteng mountain pass. The rally started in Johannesburg and had an overnight stop in Bethlehem before crossing the Moteng Pass, cutting across the mountain road past Mokhotlong and down Sani Pass en-route to the Durban Beachfront.

In 1967, the idea of a rally was scrapped, and off-road racing was born in Southern Africa. Mike Reid organised the Roof, which took the form of a race in the opposite direction to the previous event from Sani Pass Hotel across the Roof to a finish in the centre of Maseru.

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