Cycling: double points throw Hollard Grand Prix finale in Namibia wide open
Greeff and Thiel head into the Hollard Grand Prix finale as the leaders. On Sunday in Windhoek, the road race will carry double weight after the mountain bike and gravel rounds.
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The final race will count twice as much. On Sunday 18 October 2026 in Windhoek, the Hollard Grand Prix will conclude on the road, after a season mixing mountain bike and gravel. Anri Greeff and Marco Thiel arrive at the top of the women's and men's standings, but the points scale for this finale still leaves their rivals a chance.
Greeff ahead of Looser, but no title secured
In the women's standings, Greeff has 81 points, against 60 for Vera Looser and 56 for Catherine Kruger. Her lead over her nearest challenger is therefore 21 points. In the men's, Thiel has 65 points, ahead of Martin Freyer on 43 and Cuff on 42.
Sunday's podium will earn 50, 36 and 30 points respectively. On finishing positions alone, a win will therefore claw back 14 points on second place and 20 on third. That is less than the 21 points separating Greeff from Looser before the race: beating the leader will not necessarily be enough to overtake her in the overall standings. The rules also provide for extra points in the mountain classifications, so the picture is not confined to finishing positions alone.
A season across several terrains
The change of discipline is what makes this event so intriguing. The series comprises five rounds scheduled from April to October, including this finale: Moonlandscape, Friedenau, Na/aankusê, Khomas 100 and then Windhoek. After the mountain bike and gravel terrain, the final result will come from a road race. It is therefore not simply a matter of rewarding the best sprinter or the best road rider on the Sunday.
Greeff has already shown this year that she can make her mark on the tarmac. In August, she finished second in the Tour de Windhoek, 14 seconds behind South Africa's Kelsey Jade van Schoor. That result is no guide to the finale, but Greeff nonetheless goes into a discipline in which she has already placed this season. The Tour de Windhoek is a separate event, which earns no points in this series.
Consistency to the final standings
Sunday's main event is 100 kilometres long: that full distance is the one that earns points in the series. The festival also offers distances of 72 and 32 kilometres. Riders must have completed at least three rounds to qualify for the overall standings and the prize money. For the two series classifications, the announced first prize is N$250,000 per winner.
In the event of a tie on points, the rules separate riders first by number of wins, then by number of podiums, before taking the result of the finale into account. Sunday's finishing position can therefore count on two levels: in the points won, and then in the final tie-break criterion.
The gap between the contenders will be the benchmark to watch, as much as the finishing order. Winning the round and winning the series are two different results; the points accumulated since April remain part of the calculation.
Original photograph · Licence CC BY-SA 4.0. Layout and logo added; adaptation under the same licence.
