African cycling is characterized by real achievements and great hopes, but also bitter setbacks and disillers. This was also revealed by the first world title fights in road bike on this continent.
The big historical moment also included a small one. The first world bike championships on African soil were opened by an athlete from Africa. Xaverine Nirere from the host country Rwanda was the first to skimp on women’s starting ramp on the last Sunday. They accompanied drum rolls, ecstatic cheers of fans. “Of course I was excited. But I was not afraid and then just tried to do my best like everyone here”she later said the sports show. In the final bill, she was 27th, landed with almost seven minutes behind the winner Marlen Reusser in the midfield of the 44 starters. After all, she was the best African athlete, which she proudly filled her.
To declare the figurehead of Rwandic cycling now, but would be wrong. Although she grew up in Rwanda, she started cycling in sixth grade. Her brother made her, Valens Ndayisenga, 2014 and 2016 winners of the local tour du Rwanda. “He gave me my first bike. Then I connected school and cycling. The breakthrough came when school was closed during the pandemic and I was able to concentrate completely on cycling”she said with a smile. However, she receives her fine grinding as an athlete beyond the national borders, in Kenya, at the training sessions of the Amani team licensed there. She has been there since last year, contested with the team primarily gravelately, she also wins occasionally. From time to time she returns to the street. As now at the World Cup.
One of the problems of cycling in Rwanda makes it clear that she had to go abroad to develop her talent further. One of her teammates in the mixed relay is at the club level in Kenya, the other, Diane Ingabire, made the leap to Europe two years ago, to the young team of the German racing team Canyon Sram Zondacrypto. But the base in the country is fragile.
Fragile infrastructure
This is also due to the departure of Team Africa Rising’s development project and the Adrien Niyonshuti junior academy, which had developed from it. Niyonshuti was the first cycling professional from Rwanda, at that time at the South African racing team MTN Qhubeka. He also took part in the 2012 Olympic Games as a mountain biker. That was also a premiere for the Rwandian sport. After the active career, he built up a cycling school. “But then I gave up because I couldn’t get any money to finance a real team with good material and continuous training and competition program”he explained the sports show on the edge of the World Cup.
Niyonshuti went to Benin and now returned to his homeland as a coach of the selection of the West African country. Of course, he also considers the World Cup in Rwanda as a milestone: “I am proud that my country proves that it can align such a big event.” But he doubts the sustainable effect. “With the departure of our academy, the level of the Rwandan drivers has dropped”he complains. You can see this from the results, but also in lower training sizes, he describes his observation. And if the World Cup was over, money and attention would no longer be put into cycling to the same extent, he fears.
GIRMAY: “Africa has gotten bigger”
In the association you can see it differently. Association President Samson Ndayishimiye referred to the country’s cycling ship, the Tour du Rwanda, especially on the country’s cycling ship. It is actually organized first -class. However, there is a lack of races at regional or local level. “This is a problem of the entire African continent. There are too few races in which the talents can measure themselves”also said UCI President David Lappartient at a press conference in Kigali on Friday. The chief of the world cycling association re -elected for four years referred to all levels, the national, the regional and the bars. And he promised initiatives of the UCI and the African association to change something.
But that will take time. Africa’s superstar Biniam Girmay even heralded the alarm bells. “The deficit of Africa towards Europe has even grew in the past 20 years. In Europe, cycling has developed enormously, from the material, from training methodology, from nutrition. In Africa, however, money and resources are missing to keep up”he also said at his press conference on Friday in Kigali.
The classic specialist from Eritrea also regretted that the World Cup organizers had missed a historical opportunity. “The course is too heavy, not only for me”said the former winner of the point jersey at the Tour de France. “He is also too difficult for all other African drivers, which name they always give me”he said. He also referred to the many African young drivers who did not reach the goal in the street races of the youngsters.
New UCI center promotes athletes from Africa
Association President Ndayishimiye tried to defuse this criticism of the sports show with a bon mot. “Not we made this course. God is to blame for the fact that we are the ‘land of 1000 hills'”he said. But the attraction of creating the superlative of the “hardest World Cup race of all time” obviously prevailed all the considerations of helping African athletes with a less demanding course to gain greater success.
However, there are also positive accents. In February, the UCI opened an offshoot of her World Cycling Center in Rwanda and prepared 65 young athletes from 35 African countries for the World Cup. Further training camps, but also further training for trainers, mechanics and commissioners are planned there, explained Jacques Landry, director of the WCC program, the sports show.
Mechanic training With German help
And something also grows at the base. The Berlin management consultant and specialist for the development of the wire, Burkhart Volbracht, raised an academy for the training of bicycle mechanics with the organizer of the already legendary 1000 km long ultramarathon Race Around Rwanda, Simon Schutter, in Kigali. “There are many people who ride bike here. One of the bicycle taxi drivers with their heavy entrance wheels. But more and more bike tourists from all over the world are coming here. What is lacking is good mechanics. There is no training for it”said Volbracht of the sports show.
As part of the “Gear Up” project, he now wants to establish a compressed version of the two -year German training in Rwanda. The long-term goal is to convey competencies that are not only enough to change the hose in the entrance wheels, but also include the repair of complex circuits up to maintaining e-bikes in order to give e-mobility in the country. Volbracht actually wanted to start with the program last year to have trained the first 20 mechanics on time, on the one hand, which on the one hand had some national teams, and on the other hand, their first steps can take their own business when looking after the many bike kins who came into the country as World Cup visitors. “Unfortunately it took a little longer”he said.