'The only way is to bring them to the Worlds' – Kigali 2025 fuels African cycling

Sports writer and part of Team Africa Rising organisation Jeremy Ford is a living embodiment of practicing what you preach. In the weeks leading up to the first UCI Road World Championships on African soil, Ford promoted the event, and the African riders and nations taking part in it, across the media, and last week during the championships, he was deep in the throes of the action, working as a DS for the young riders from the nation of Benin.

He joined the On Yer Bike podcast in the thick of it, from the centre of Kigali during the inaugural women’s U23 road race last Thursday, and then again earlier today, to reflect back on the experience. A UCI qualified sports director and bilingual French-speaker Ford defined his role for this championships as something somewhat different from the traditional understanding of a ‘DS’ – a ‘Chef de Mission,’ which he explains as ‘sort of a mix of football manager and technical director.’ 

He was on the ground as part of a team supporting 12 riders from the West African nation of Benin, along with a DS and three mechanics. He describes a series of ‘20 hour days’ and outlines the mission for the Benin team, which is somewhat different to that of the more established nations competing in Kigali.

‘What we have is a Benin team of juniors and under 23s so the whole idea of this race is purely experience,' Ford explains. 'We're not expecting much from these riders. We're not expecting to even finish the road races. What I've said to the riders is you're in these races to sear into your brain the top level so you understand, without me telling you, or the coach trying to tell you, that you've seen what the level is of these top riders, and then you're able to then say, can I make it? 

What do I have to do to improve? So when the team gets back to Benin, the idea is they'll start the preparations for next year's worlds and the African continental champs and things like that.’

It's early days, and even as we’re speaking, one of the two Benin women, Vanette Houssou Yenoukounme, withdraws from the race following a crash, but on the whole, Ford is positive about the impact that the experience will have on the riders. ‘It's tough. End of lap two, I think every single African rider had been dropped from the peloton. Looking at it live on TV now, I think there's 28-30 riders in that front group, and they're all European and a few South Americans. It's elite riders.' 

'So, as I said, it's just experience, really. There's no other way to show these guys what the top level is. Because the one challenge for African cyclists is there's really not that many races on the continent, so they have to come to Europe, which obviously is super expensive. And these days, getting visas is really difficult, so the only way to show them an elite level race is to bring them to the World Champs.’

As for his charges, the riders from the emerging cycling nation of Benin, Ford explains where they stand in terms of their cycling background. ‘They’re a slightly unique nation. It's a West African nation, pretty much at sea level. So a bit of a tricky one when you come to Rwanda at 1500 metres at the base level here. 

'What's happened is West Africa has always been like soccer mad, and cycling has always been Southern Africa, the East Africans, and then Algeria and Morocco, in the north. And I think, because there's been so much focus on cycling in probably the last 5-10, years, the West Africans have woken up a bit. I've heard Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Benin, Sierra Leone, are all suddenly going, “hang on. we've got athletes,”; we know that because they supply such good footballers. So they've started to get more technical on their cycling knowledge. 

'This event has allowed them to go to something; I've seen more Nigerians here than I've seen ever at any cycling event. So with our Benin guys, they've got the passion for it. They've got to experience to take the next level up. The whole idea is juniors and U23, to start them on that journey to be better cyclists.'

Ford continues: ‘It's an interesting group, because they're all probably like 5’2”-5’3” [157-160cm], good power. But they've just never had that chance to climb. So they all went off to Wyoming, where Kim Coates, the CEO of Africa Rising is based. They did an altitude camp up there, because it's at 2000 metres. And then a few of them got invited to the Maryland Classic as a national team, which is pretty cool, because there's never been an African Women's team race in the US. So they're really starting to get it, but a lot of our programme is to get them up hills at the moment.’

In addition to the drive to give riders experience of climbing, Ford also hopes to open their minds to broader opportunities within the sport, with other disciplines previously neglected by African national federations, which could be an important part of the future of African cycling. 

‘Charlotte Métoévi, [U23], I think she's a track cyclist,’ Ford observes. ‘I look at her on the bike, the power she's got, she was third in the African conti time trial this year. And I think that's one of the things as a federation, they've never had that structure to say “actually, this one might be a mountain biker, or this one might be a time trialist,” like Team GB would do, right – you'd start specialising people. 

I used to be a mountain bike racer, and I was saying to Ricardo [Sodjede], “Oh, this is what I used to do,” because he's like, “I really like mountain bikes,” and I realised, he rides a mountain bike every weekend, and no one's ever asked him if he wants to be a mountain biker. I think it's just a federation thing, because road cycling is just the number one. There's only a few mountain bikers really, across the continent.’

Outside of Benin, it’s interesting to reflect of how an inaugural UCI Road World Championships on African soil might impact the sport on the continent, as a result of the event in Rwanda. ‘I've worked with the Africa Rising group that started in Rwanda in 2007 and there was not really anything here. There were some local races. So they spent about 10 years getting it up to a good level; good bikes, good coaches.’ 

As far as the ripple effects though, we were keen to understand whether these would be felt across African cycling, or whether riders from the continent still faced too many obstacles to success at the top level. 

Ford was keen to provide some much-needed context. ‘African Cycling has been on its way up for about 10-12 years. I mean, right now there's 146 riders, I think, in World Tour, Pro-conti and Conti from Africa. To put that in context, about 70 are from the US. So it's not like a beginning of anything, right? 

The numbers are there now, like for all cyclists, the biggest problem is the vast majority of those they're at the continental level. But our view is – well, that's enough to some extent; like the moment you've got to the point that a continental team will take you on, you're kind of someone else's problem, if that makes sense, because there's no difference then between you and a Belgian, a French guy, a Dutch guy, a British guy. So our whole job is to try and get them to the point where a conti team says, “You know what? I'll give them a shot.” 

‘And the reality is, for a lot of those continental teams and some of the Pro conti teams, a lot of their soigneurs and sports directors and staff are all here working for national groups. I can see the Belgian tent from here, it's twice as big as ours, there's about 30 people in it. But all those people, they're not Belgian cycling employees only, right? They're all from teams and clubs. So being here, seeing the fact it's not some crazy part of the world, it's clean, everything's fine, the kids know how to use nutrition, they know how to use their bikes; I think the main impact will be it takes away a lot of the sort of barriers that people have in their heads, that Africa is some crazy place over the horizon, and actually, now they've seen it, they've seen the roads, they've seen the quality of the riders. I think it will help.’

In summary, in terms of the riders' future, Ford concludes: ‘The talent is here. That's the key thing. It's just the equipment and the access is not; that's really all it is.’

Ford speaks about the atmosphere in Rwanda, and though the crowds had looked relatively enthusiastic in the earlier part of the week, it seemed the locals were not quite clear on the nature of the racing which – up to that point – had consisted only of time trials. 

‘They've never had a time trial here, ever, which we had no idea. I come to the Tour of Rwanda most years, I forgot there's never a time trial stage. So literally, the first four days, the public have been watching people, like “These guys are training”. Now it's the first road race, it's gone crazy, thousands of people.' 

As the week progressed plenty of videos circulated online of WorldTour riders rubbing shoulders with local delivery riders. Ford fills in the colour around the content. 

‘The milk guys are legends, that is one of the coolest things in Rwanda. So essentially, they don't have milk trucks or milk cars. The milk is delivered by bicycle. And those guys have four of those urns on those bikes, that’s like 100 kilos. And they're single speed Chinese bikes. The bike weighs, like, 40 kilos.'

In terms of the scale of the operation, and how well-suited Rwanda as a nation actually is the world championships, Ford is keen to de-bunk some myths. ‘I mean, honestly, that's the thing that Rwanda does well, like Kigali is probably the main city in Africa now for like, conventions and all these monster events, and like the farm industry. So you've got the massive Convention Centre, which is literally next to us here, and then you've got the BK arena, which is like Wembley Arena. And then you've got the Amahoro Stadium, which is a monster stadium, and these are all brand new, and it's just incredible. 

‘The thing that people never really get about Rwanda is, I think they call it transition countries. Like, if you go to Kenya, the roads are insane; terrible conditions and lorries, and it's nuts, because people are always driving through Kenya from the sea to somewhere else. Rwanda isn't one of those countries. You don't really go through Rwanda to anywhere. So when the Germans were here about 15 years ago doing some big projects, they were like, we need to sort the roads, so you've got probably the best European tarmac with these wonderful gradient roads, and there's no traffic.'

He continues: ‘I remember about five years ago I was here for a training thing. I did 112km/ph down a hill on my road bike, and my handlebars weren't even vibrating. And I was like, I can't do this at home. So these guys, the milk churn guys - they have no brakes, by the way, so they're going down these hills at 120km/ph - that is just incredible to watch. Most of them have, like, bits of car tire tied to their sandals for braking.'

As for whether the nation is truly aware of what's unfolding around them, Ford is unequivocal - the Rwandans know their cycling. 'The thing you have to remember, with Africa, it's much more community-based than Europe is,' he observes. 'So everyone's watching football in a bar or in a café, and it's the same with cycling. So when the Tour de France is on - if you Google “Eritreans, during the Tour de France,” - there'll be 1000 people in a café for 100. 

'So they know Pogi, they know Remco, they know these guys. Obviously, they love their own guys. There was a guy going past in the time trial from Tanzania, he's called Sharif, and the crowd was shouting his name, so it's nice. They really are fans that of the sport here, and Rwanda has had that for quite a while, but I've seen flags here for Eritrea, for Ghana. There's a lot of folks in from the region, Ethiopia. There's a lot. 

'They told me they expect a million and a half people on the road on Saturday for the women and Sunday for the men. And I think we will see that it'll be nuts.'

As life returned to normal in Kigali following a week in which cycling took centre stage, we caught up with Jeremy once again to hear his reflections,. ‘It's been an incredible, incredible week,’ he said, from the streets of Kigali where he was driving with his colleagues ahead of the next leg of his journey, heading to the tour of Burundi with the Benin women’s team. He confirms that the expectation in terms of the crowds was borne out in reality. ‘The UCI is estimating 1.5 million people on the roads yesterday for the men's elite race. To put that in context, you're looking at nearly seven hours, and they were all there. There was no dropping off of numbers at any point. It was incredible.’ 

In terms of the actual racing and the course itself, Ford echoes the thoughts of Intermarché-Wanty DS Aike Visbeek, with whom he spoke at the Tour de France this summer. ‘On reflection. I think it was just too hard. It was I think, the first or second hardest race in the history of the worlds. Aike Visbeek’s quote was very simple. He said, “unfortunately, the Africans have designed the hardest course for Africans,” and we saw that in the results. You know, they're the hosts, but Rwanda really didn't show; we had six Eritreans in the men's elite race. Almost all DNFs. It's an elimination race. About a week ago, having driven the course for the first time, I said, I don't think 30 or more will finish. And we actually finished bang on 30. And wonderfully, one of the Eritrean riders, Amanuel [Ghebreigzabhier], was the 30th over the line, just ahead of the broom wagon.

‘I've been to the Tour of Rwanda several times, and you have an incredible set of stages across the country, but because of this absolute focus on Kigali – and obviously I understand the logistics of that, with the hotels, everything else – it's a shame not to have got a little bit more out into the countryside, maybe a little bit less of the relentless climbing. Seeing Tom Pidcock suffering at the end, to say it's the hardest race he's ever done... I'm just not sure it needed to be that relentless, if I'm honest. But it is what it is.' 

Ford’s tip of one to watch among the African riders was 18-year-old Tsige Kahsay Kiros of Ethiopia (prior to the race, he said “we think she's going to be a rock star.”). This belief was borne out as she finished an exceptional 7th in the women’s junior road race on Saturday. ‘The Tour de l’Avenir was her first UCI race outside of Ethiopia, and she was 22nd, and just blew people's minds,’ Ford reflects. ‘Already there was noise around her, but to see her attack, I think, three times in the first two laps, was incredible.

'At the end, we were screaming at her to calm down, because she just kept on going. And we saw her fade a little bit in the last lap, but then actually come back. That was a big moment to see her come back, because you clearly see she doesn't like losing. She's a relentless winner in Ethiopia. She's actually quite famous for [being] absolutely obsessed with Tadej Pogacar, and she replicates every single one of his winning celebrations. 

‘So she was the standout, and I know three teams are now vying for her to sign, and she's only 18, so, you know, she's got some decisions to make. Her federation and her friends are going to help her with that. We'll help her a little bit with that as well. But as Kim Le Court said when she signed on, having watched the last 20k of the junior race, she said, “I called my team and said we should hire her,” so watch this space on Tsige Kahsay Kiros.’