In a very hard first stage in Giro del Capo South Africa, the Trek – Marco Polo team could not match the power of the winning Barloworld team. Barloworld put the whole field in the gutter on the hilly course and despite good teamwork from Leon van Bon, only Bart Brentjens managed the first split. He finished 15^th after a hard finale, still almost 4 minutes down. Jai (26^th) and Fuyu (48^th) finished in the first peloton. Sergey did not feel well and missed the time cut. The team is 7^th on team GC now in Africa’s premier race and Jai and Bart are looking forward to climbing stages.