Team Garmin adidas super stars, Phillip Buys and Marc Bassingthwaighte, have much to celebrate these days. They have both achieved wonderful things in the world of Mountain Biking and are making all of us at Garmin super proud.

For Philip, his hard work and sacrifices since January have paid off big time! Cycling South Africa (CSA) recently announced the names of the 18 riders who will represent South Africa at the UCI Mountain Bike World Championship in Champery, Switzerland and Philip and Burry Stander (Specialized) will be the only two South African riders to compete in the pro-elite men’s cross-country race.

With the help of Dr. Jeroen Swart from the UCT Sports Institute, Philip has become a true student of cross-country racing. This year he made a point of learning as much as possible, by evaluating his performances after each race and trying different racing tactics. The end result was that he not only won two of the races in the National Cross-Country series but, due to his consistent podium finishes, he was also the overall series winner.

Marc also consistently performs well. In fact, it has become evident that the tougher the race, the better he performs. During the past two years hardly a race has gone by in which he did not end up on the podium.

At this year’s African Championship Marc finished a respectable second, while at the South African Championships he finished third overall. But the biggest accolade came when Marc came first in the Namibian National Champs, and will proudly represent Namibia at the Olympics next year.