Africa's dwindling presence at the Tour de France
2025 will see the smallest African representation at the race in more than a decade
2025 has been hailed as Africa’s year to finally and fully take its place on cycling’s world stage with the first World Championships ever to be held on the continent. However, at the 2025 men’s Tour de France there will be fewer African riders represented than there have been in more than a decade.
Just one African rider, Eritrean Biniam Girmay, will be on the start-line in Lille on Saturday. It’s the lowest representation of the African continent in cycling’s biggest men’s race since 2014, when there were none at all.
There are lots of good things happening in African cycling at the grassroots, and this year an African rider won a Monument for the first time through Mauritian Kim Le Court-Pienaar at Liége-Bastogne-Liége. However, the success of Le Court-Pienaar and Girmay is a mirage to the development of African cycling in terms of access to the highest level of the sport.
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