A perspective on young riders from smaller nations
+ South East Asia's biggest race, final push for Worlds qualification and much more news from the world of cycling
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Henok Mulubrhan is not a normal 23-year-old
It’ was an up-and-down first week at the Giro in many ways.
One big “up” for me has been the performances by the African riders. De Bod and Gibbons have been solid in their support for their leaders. Gebreigzabhier and Tesfatsion have been hunting breaks, the former was in contention to win stage 4. I think both of Trek’s Eritreans could win a stage in the next two weeks.
Mulubrhan, riding his first grand tour, was also in a move on stage 7. He was dropped on the first classified climb. To be honest, it looked like he struggled.
Mulubrhan’s performance made me think a lot. He’s a talented rider, the winner of this year’s Tour du Rwanda, two-time African champion and top-10s in the Tour of Antalya and Valle d’Aosta show that.
He’s 23. Our perspective as cycling fans nowadays is that when a rider gets to 23, we know how good he or she is. 23-year-olds are winning grand tours and monuments after all.
The thing is, not every 23-year-old has the same background.
Henok Mulubrhan didn’t have a junior career. We first came across him as a first year under-23 racing for the UCI World Cycling Centre. He was talented, but didn’t have that foundation riders get from racing in the juniors. Even now, I feel like he is playing catch-up along with many other Africans, Asians and others. He’s very much still in his development phase.
We have to be patient with these riders. They don’t race with an equal foundation to others, so I don’t think we should measure them in the same way. The trend over the last few years of the top riders getting younger serves as a further disadvantage to riders from smaller cycling nations.
I don’t see Mulubrhan in the same way as I see other riders the same age as him; like Andreas Leknessund, Ilan van Wilder or Thymen Arensmen - all riding the Giro with him.
Given time and fair chance I believe Mulubrhan and others like him will come good.
SEA Games
Quite simply the biggest sporting event in South East Asia. For many nations, this is bigger than the Olympics.
The multi-sport South East Asia Games are held in Cambodia this year and the Criteriums and road races took place last week.
The Crits kicked things off and in the men’s race it was a win for Terry Kusuma, the revelation of the Tour of Thailand. The Indonesian fast man beat Malaysian Fakhruddin Mazuki in the sprint. Veteran Ronald Oranza from the Philippines rounded out the podium.
Jutatip Maneephan of Thailand won the women’s crit, overcoming WWT rider Thi That Nguyen of Vietnam. Malaysia’s Nur Aisyah Mohamad Zubir was third. Maneephan and Zubir have been in good form already this season on the Asia Tour.
The podium from the women’s crit was the same in the road race, but the top-2 were reversed. Nguyen won a big sprint in Siem Reap to take her fifth SEA Games title in a row.
There was one other WWT rider in the women’s races. Chelsie Tan of Singapore and Jayco-Alula achieved two top-10s - not bad on parcours that really don’t suit her as a lightweight climber.
The men’s road race was won by Malaysia’s Fakhruddin Mazuki, improving on his second-place from the crit. His Terengganu team-mate, Aiman Cahyadi of Indonesia, came in second and Oranza was third again.
Final push for Worlds qualification
The deadline for qualification for the Glasgow Worlds is just over a month away. Nations are scrambling to score enough points to get inside the top-50 in the UCI rankings to secure one quota place in the road races.
One nation just outside of the 50 is Uzbekistan - currently 51st. To help them gain a few more points, the federation put on a few one-day races last week. The racing wasn’t short on controversy.
The first race was a 9.5km mountain time-trial. Procyclingstats reported on Twitter that riders from teams opposing the Uzbek national team had told them that the winner, Ulugbek Saidov, had received additional support from his coach.
I heard additional unconfirmed reports that the rider in third place, Bezhodbek Rakhimbaev, also received assistance.
The series of races helped Uzbekistan climb 16 places in the UCI Nations rankings to 35, meaning they are now on track to secure one quota place for the 2023 Worlds and 2024 Olympics.
This is a fierce, and mostly unseen, battle which goes on each year. For many of cycling’s smaller nations, qualifying a place in the Worlds and Olympics is the top priority.
I’m writing about this for another publication, so look out for more soon.
Other News
Bermudian Kaden Hopkins continued his good season with 5th overall at the Tour de Loiret. This was set up by a 5th place in the stage 3 TT. In the same stage, Egyptian rider Ahmad Badreddin Wais was 11th.
Amadou Diagne of Senegal won the GP Haute-Guinée. Guinea’s Abdoulaye Bangoura was second and Sierra Leone’s Alusine Conteh third.
The Vuelta Formosa Internacional in Argentina was won by home rider Laureano Rosas. Oscar Sevilla was second and another Argentinian, Agustin del Negro, was third.
The first three stages of the Course Ain Defla in Algeria have been raced. There have been stage wins for Abdallah Ben Youcef, Oussama Abdellah Mimouni and Zaki Boudar so far.
Uruguayan Thomas Silva continues to lead the Spanish Cup standings after 2nd place at Memorial Pascual Momparler
The Tour de Dafra in Burkina Faso was won by Lamoussa Zoungrana. She beat Awa Bamogo into second and Lydie Congo was third.
Antri Christoforou won her 11th Cyprus national Road Champs and her 9th TT title. Alexandros Matsangos won the men’s road title and Andreas Miltiadis took the TT.
Extra Reading
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