Ma Feature
Return of the
COLLEGE CHAMP
Now back in SA after four very successful years studying and competing in the USA, Sarah Hill is looking to not only continue her own mountain biking career, but also help more young South African female riders launch theirs as well. – BY KYLE DEELEY
In October last year, after four years of studying in the USA and competing on the collegiate mountain biking circuit for the last time, South Africa’ s Sarah Hill wrote her name into the history books as she won the gruelling three-day, six-discipline Omnium title at the Division I USA Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championships in West Virginia. Riding for the Brevhard Tornadoes, her secondplace finishes in the cross country, short track cross country and downhill events helped her dominate the Omnium, which in turn helped her anchor Brevard to its maiden national collegiate championship win, having finished runners-up
in 2015.“ I was so overwhelmed … What an incredible weekend!” says Sarah,“ Everything just went exactly right and I couldn’ t think of a better way to end my collegiate career!”
With her studies in sport psychology completed, Sarah is now back in SA and says she is looking to use her racing experience on home soil, and to pass it on to other South African girls, as she believes she now understands so much more about the cycling world and how to succeed in it.“ My confidence has grown exponentially, not only in myself, but also in my training and racing. Through studying the psychology of mountain biking, I think I am now on a whole new level. I am more competitive because I am more patient, and I race with more quality and less ignorance. I am‘ better’ in so many ways, and I encourage every high school student to take this opportunity if they are keen,” explained Sarah.
Her desire to grow the sport amongst the youth in South Africa has seen her team up with Cycling Specific coach, Kyle Wood, and she has been
given the mission to grow the female side of the team.“ Junior athletes remind us how far Kyle and I have come in our cycling careers, and we have so much to share with them,” says Sarah. She has also been signed up by Giant South Africa to be their LIV Ambassador for Gauteng, so Sarah is now creating more groups for women to ride in.“ I get to encourage more people to get on their bicycles and I am determined to follow in the steps of Lindsey Richter from LIV USA and become the Director of Inspiration for women’ s mountain biking in South Africa,” says Sarah.
BITTEN BY THE BUG
Born in East London in 1993, Sarah moved to Johannesburg at a young age, by which time she had already shown a passion for sport. At St. Stithians Girls College she took part in every form of sport she could: Netball, soccer, tennis, swimming, athletics, softball and rowing. You name it, Sarah did it!“ In high school I started to find netball and rowing to be my main sports. One would take place in the summer and one in the winter. I enjoyed the team aspect of netball and trying to predict the opposing team’ s next move. Honestly, I did rowing because it was the hardest sport I had ever tried, and to this day I still think it’ s the toughest,” explains Sarah.
Then in her final year of school Sarah was introduced to mountain biking, as a form of cross-training for her rowing, and after lots of thrills and spills, she says the biking bug bit.“ Mountain biking was fun! I fell … a lot! But I just kept coming back for more, and it was then
Images: Courtesy Sarah Hill
40 ISSUE 94 MAY 2017 / www. modernathlete. co. za