“There is always a moment, that turning point where you say, ‘I want to be a cyclist’. I believe for so many Africans, it could be that turning point,” says Tsgabu Grmay over the phone while he takes a break from coaching a group of young Africans in Brittany, France. They are preparing for the biggest event in African cycling’s history: the 2025 Road World Championships in Rwanda.
Grmay, an Ethiopian ex-professional with nine seasons of WorldTour experience under his belt, has been working with a group of riders selected by the UCI for most of the year. Several of them are competing at the 2024 World Championships in Zurich, but it’s all preparation for the big one, as Africa takes centre stage in 12 months’ time.
It’s being talked about as a landmark moment. It will be the first UCI World Championships ever to take place on the continent of Africa. Building on the success of Biniam Girmay and others before him, these Championships could be a catalyst to change the landscape of professional cycling forever.
The UCI has long sought to globalise road cycling – a sport historically monopolised by Europeans – and seeks to progress this aim through their World Cycling Centre (WCC). The 2025 World Championships is seen as the perfect opportunity to supercharge that initiative.
However, preparations for Kigali 2025 haven’t been without troubles as issues of governance, cost, and a lack of sporting development threaten to diminish its impact. With one year to go, will Kigali 2025 be the success that’s hoped for?
A ‘launching platform’
The cold reality is that despite the headlines made by Girmay this summer at the Tour de France, cycling development across the African continent has taken a hit in recent years. With recessions across Africa since the Covid pandemic, funding for cycling has dried up in many countries. As economic situations slowly recover in parts of the continent, it is hoped that the Kigali 2025 World Championships will restart much-needed investment.
Biniam Girmay on the Tour de France podium in Nice after winning the points classification
“We had a lot of activities prior and [during Covid] people didn't have food to eat, they didn't have jobs, people left the sport,” Jean-Pierre Van Zyl, Director of the UCI World Cycling Centre’s Africa satellite, tells Rouleur.
“The development just stood still. We created training programs and we were sending videos on WhatsApp to just keep the athletes that did pass through the centre previously on the bike, to keep them training. They were making concrete buckets with cement and putting a pole in to do some gym training, pulling tires behind them, behind the bikes, just things which made it exciting.”
“[Kigali 2025] is going to reignite the interest, it's going to create a goal for the national federations to aspire to. It’s going to be the launching platform to put African cycling back in the game,” Van Zyl says.
As the punishing cobbled climbs of Kigali are lined by thousands of people craning their necks to see the world’s best riders flying past, the UCI also expect a host of leaders from around Africa to attend the Championships. The biggest hindrances to would-be African cyclists are the lack of financial resources and a sparse racing schedule. It’s expected that the success of Kigali 2025 will stir those in power in other African nations to extend their investment in the sport and develop their national race calendars.
“We feel that these World Championships, first time in Africa, should be and will be a springboard to promote activities,” says WCC Director Jacques Landry. “And in Africa, we're already sensing that. We're already sensing there's a lot more activities or willingness to actually promote more activities in Africa.”
“We want to see more and more, dare I say it, non-Europeans getting on the podium, being noticed,” Landry adds, spelling out the drive behind the WCC’s activities.
Human rights, forgery and sky-high costs
Although Kigali 2025 will be the first UCI Worlds in Africa, hosts Rwanda have put a mark on the world of elite sport over recent years.
The state-backed Visit Rwanda logo has sponsored several top football clubs over the last few seasons and talks are underway for the small east-African nation to host races in Formula One in the years to come, among other major events.
Rwanda is accused of using these initiatives, including the 2025 World Championships, as part of a wider sports washing campaign. Allegedly this seeks to improve Rwanda’s image in the world amidst allegations of those in power squashing political dissent and hindering the right to free speech, alongside other human rights violations.
Biniam Girmay at the start of the 2024 Paris Olympics men's road race
Governance issues also exist within FERWACY, Rwanda’s national cycling federation. In the summer of 2023, FERWACY’s two top officials were fired under allegations of favouritism, forgery and falsification, emerging from an enquiry by the Rwanda Investigation Bureau. Around the same time, the French organisation which ran the long-standing Tour du Rwanda, who had also agreed to manage Kigali 2025, pulled out due to a relational fallout.
The situation has been rescued somewhat since, at least on the surface, with ASO and Belgian company Golazo stepping in as organisers and replacements found for the federation positions - although there are recent reports that member clubs are seeking to oust FERWACY’s new president.
More recently, as the national federations of the world make preparations for their time in Rwanda, claims have been made of the astronomical costs of competing in the Championships. Nathalie Clauwaert, general director of Belgian Cycling, has said that financial outgoings for the Rwanda Worlds are around double those of the 2022 Championships in Wollongong, Australia.
Speaking to HLN, Clauwaert suggested that the Belgians may send a paired-down delegation to Rwanda and accused the local hotel industry in Kigali of hiking up prices. “The hotel sector near the capital Kigali is trying to squeeze every last drop out of it,” she said. “If no affordable solution is found, I fear that we will have to make decisions.”
The first World Championships on African soil was always going to come with its own unique issues, as with any new venture. It was never going to be a plug-and-play Championships, like the Zurich 2024 event. The key question to be answered over the next 12 months is whether these problems will overshadow the possible progress that Kigali 2025 could enable.
Creating the next African cycling stars
The hope is that Kigali 2025 will propel the next crop of Biniam Girmays into the global limelight. In many ways this is not just a World Championships, it's part of an agenda to see the sport of cycling explode in Africa, and especially in Rwanda.
However with a year to go until its home Worlds, host Rwanda has a long way to go to be competitive at this level - it is currently placed just inside the top-50 of the UCI Nations ranking. Rwanda has only ever had one rider in the WorldTour, Adrien Niyonshuti back in 2016, and sent a small delegation of riders to Zurich 2024.
Niyonshuti himself, now the national coach of the West African nation of Benin, has a poor assessment of the prospects of Rwandan riders at next year’s Worlds. “I don't believe we have one Rwandan rider who can finish the World Championships right now,” he says.
Rwanda's Vainqueur Masengesho during the Men's U23 ITT at the World Championships in Zurich
The 36-year-old used to be heavily involved with the development of young riders in Rwanda, before closing his eponymous academy a couple of years ago. Rwanda has struggled to produce talented riders since and FERWACY’s work to develop youngsters has come under criticism, even with a dedicated consultant provided by the UCI.
There are currently two Rwandan riders contracted to European UCI teams; Valentine Nzayisenga of the WCC Team and Diane Ingabire of Canyon//SRAM Generation. As things stand, the hosts could be almost invisible at their home Worlds.
The UCI aims to see African riders play a part at the pointy end of races in Kigali. Ahead of the Championships, the WCC have been investing heavily in junior riders, with Grmay now employed as a coach.
“That's our goal, to have the juniors at least compete and race in the front peloton and be part of the race and inspire the rest of Africa. I'm not going to say we're going to get medals,” Van Zyl says.
In many ways, Kigali 2025 is not as important as it seems. If Africa is ever to grow from being more than just a bit-part player in the world of cycling, what’s important is what comes after the first UCI World Championships in Africa. Will Kigali be remembered for sportswashing and Rwandan Cycling’s internal problems, or for launching a generation of African stars?
“We've already started laying down the brickwork for the foundation and we're not going to stop just by building a foundation,” Landry says. “We have to build it from the ground up and we’ve started doing that. And so, for sure, the intent is to continue with that momentum, whatever that momentum is created on the backend of Kigali…not only in Rwanda.”
The WCC currently has one satellite site in Africa, but plans to add up to four more in the coming years. They will seek to develop cycling infrastructure on the continent by training coaches and mechanics and helping national federations to grow their race calendars.
Challenges remain and the work ahead is significant, but it’s difficult to see how the Rwanda Worlds will fail to be a success for the UCI’s globalisation goals. Kigali 2025, Landry concludes, should be the “catalyst” to take African cycling to the next level.
