Interview with Adrien Niyonshuti
Rwandan former World Tour pro is now the national coach of Benin. Ahead of the Tour du Benin next week, we spoke about the race, cycling development in Benin and how they are using technology.
Last year, Adrien Niyonshuti took up a new role as the coach of the national team of Benin, in partnership with Team Africa Rising.
Niyonshuti was the first, and remains the only, Rwandan to ride in the World Tour. He's looking to pass all that experience onto the young men and women of Benin.
Ahead of the Tour du Benin, which starts on the 2nd of May, I had a chat with Niyonshuti about how the development of cycling in Benin is going and their preparations for the race.
You've been the coach of the Benin national team for about a year now, how did this all come about?
The first visit was last year in April, exactly one year ago now. It was my first time being in Benin. When I came I saw that it was so nice to be here and to work with the riders. They have a lot of talent and potential, we just need to make adjustments to a few small things to change their mindset so they can believe that they can be good riders and they can become professionals.
Me and Kim [CEO of Team Africa Rising] come down and we help them a lot, helping their bike fitness and looking at everything where it was not done right.
It’s been great. Now it's been one year and you can see it's a lot of improvement.
You still live in Italy, so how does the coaching work?
I have five assistant coaches here. I send the programme to the coaches and they share with the riders. It helps that they understand the English and French, most of them they are teachers in the secondary school. So when you share something, they’re able to follow it.
So that's how we work and I take one month or two weeks before a race to come to Benin and help them prepare. This time I’ve taken six weeks because I really want to be serious for this race to show the Benin riders what we need to do.
Me and Kim, we’ve been here for six weeks this time and we see a lot of change and we’ve been preparing well for the race.
From there it will give us a vision for next year of what we can do much better. So there we are not just thinking about the result. We are thinking about the future.
And you’re not just developing the riders, but working with coaches as well. Why is that important?
It's so important to develop the coaching. The coaches now are not far away from understanding the technology. They are not far away from understanding the training and how it is very important to talk with the riders.
It's so difficult with the riders to do the things when I'm in Italy. In Europe each rider, they have a private coach but here it's not that kind of development. So for me it's very important to have good coaches in Benin.
Describe the set up and facilities you have in Benin, I believe you have a team house? How do the riders spend their time off the bike?
We have the big house and we have a room for all riders. They eat here and we have a chef. We sort everything so riders just ride the bike.
It's not just about the cycling, just riding the right amount of hours, it is about measuring everything. So everything has been going very well and the coaches now really understand how yoga is important and stretching and the riders really understand as well.
Some of the riders don't have any idea about stretching and yoga. It’s very important for the riders. When we started they didn’t even know what yoga was, so that kind of shows how it's very important to teach the coaches and to teach the riders how is very important to stretch muscles and to be relaxed. Professional cyclists always they are stretching or doing yoga.
You cannot have good coaching without the riders really understanding how to to do the right things - to do the yoga and all this stuff because everything is linked together.
The riders used to train for 200 kilometres but have no idea how to do intervals, no idea how to recover between intervals. So everything now after almost one year, we see how it's very important to teach everything on the same level.
How has the preparation been for the Tour du Benin? What have you been focussing on in training?
Yes, we did some particular training and it was the first time for them. The first week when we came in April we were just building the training for one hour and a half, two hours. Wednesdays we do some short intervals and then the next day we did a couple of hours on the bike.
Each afternoon on Monday and Friday we do recovery training. We just focus on the cadence and we use the Wahoo system and Zwift and show them how the technology works.
After that, Saturday and Sunday, we do endurance rides for three hours to five hours.
The second week of training we started doing some motor pacing and again stretching and yoga workout.
The third week, we tried to do the same as we will do when we are racing the Tour du Benin. The fourth week we were just focusing on recovery before we start the race next week.
Today no one will ride outside. We will do a little on the Wahoo system, focusing on cadence. It's helping them to understand how cadence is very important and how they can improve their power.
In the past when I came here, they just get a bike and it’s always a competition. I told them it's not about competition. The competition will happen in the race. You just have to know there is a time to recover or to do some intensity training or to check the power. That means when we go and we hit the race, everyone knows where they are.
When we do the race it's about following kind of the until end of the stage. Everyone here has the speed and he knows how to ride in the peloton.
On top of that we have been watching all the big racing in Europe. We watched Paris Roubaix, we watched Liege. So they are starting to understand and to see how the professionals are racing. They are learning a lot in a short time, just iterating in their mind to understand how cycling works – it’s not just wake up and take the bike and go riding for five hours.
And when they when they watched those races, what what was their reaction? What questions did they have?
Always they ask me because I have the mostly young riders here, like 19 years old to 21 years old and I have like four or five riders who are between 24 and 28. So they asked me about Remco and Pogacar, when they are 21 years old or 24 years old, how are they winning the Tour de France or Liege-Bastogne Liege?
For them having never raced in Europe, they ask me: “how can we compete with these guys when they're already winning grand tours?” I told them it's because they are born in Africa. They have not had much time to spend in Europe. There’s one who is 19 years old and a junior now in South Africa [with WCC Africa]. I told them you can make it, you just have to focus to understand everything in cycling – it’s not just easy. Work hard, always follow the instruction of the coaching and it will help you become a good rider and one day everything will happen.
Their question is that: “why are the Europeans so far ahead of the Africans?” It's hard to explain to them. If you see now all the good riders, they're younger. The average age is completely different in Africa, because they have not much chance to go racing in Europe. The organisation [Benin National Cycling Federation] have a good President who really understands and he wants them to race in Europe. So they have a good chance.
And when you try to explain to them how someone like Remco won when he was junior, he was the best junior in the world and he continued progressing. That's why we say everything is possible when you have the consistency for what you're doing.
There’s a lot of potential in Africa. I hope the UCI can change something to give more opportunities for Africans to go to Europe.
If you check on the calendar, we have no calendar like in Europe. If you see in April and March, it was a full calendar of racing in Europe and here in Africa there’s no races.
It shows you how in Africa they're trying to develop. I wish that in each country they can organise one race like what Benin are doing. It's great.
We need more racing in Africa to be honest. Then the people will have more opportunity to see their talent and team managers may give the chance for African rider to sign for them. If you sign a rider at 19 years old, give them one year or two years, it will give them the opportunity to become like Biniam or the other top riders.
What is the Tour du Benin like?
The route here is very nice. It’s flat, not like in Rwanda or Eritrea with the big mountains. If the riders have had good training, it should be easy to finish the race. It’s not a hard race. The roads are very nice, lots of new roads. The biggest stage will be 157 kilometres.
It's about speed and experience for racing. Sometimes they have strong wind and rain. If it rains, it's about being able to deal with that and continuing to work until the end.
And tell me about the riders who are going. What are you expecting from them in terms of results and how they'll do in the race? Is there anyone in particular we should be looking out for?
The principle guy I have is Glorad Saïzonou. He is now 19 years old. Last year he went to Stephen Laget in France for two months. He learned a lot when he went to France, you can see him changing a lot.
Racing in the bunch in France, it’s completely different here in Africa where in the bunch there will be maybe 75 riders. It’s completely different, a big challenge for them. They have never raced with that amount of riders. With Saïzonou, he has the talent and he has the time to develop. He can be a good rider. My goal for him, I hope he can focus on the young rider jersey in the Tour du Benin.
I have another rider, Ricardo Sodjede. He was with Stephen also last year for three months racing there. From there you can see the cadence and power has improved a lot. He's 21 years old.
I have a Rémi Sowou. Rémi is 26 years old. He is a very good climber. He’s 58 kilos. He has trained a lot and you can see his muscles and so he is someone who can maybe win one stage or get on the podium one stage and also on GC.
Another one is Romuald Soudji. He is a very good rider and has had the experience with the JP van Zyl at the UCI [in South Africa]. He rode Tropical Amissa Bongo in January. He is one rider who can go in the break away and control everything.
The first time I went to a race with him, I told him “Romuald, you have been riding in South Africa with JP, show me how you can ride on the front of the peloton.” And he showed me. It was one stage [in La Tropicale], I think it was 200 kilometres and he was riding the front with Total Energies. He had the confidence to ride the front of the peloton. So that is why we need them to go and race, after they can have the confidence that they can do it. Now he is 22 years old. I believe he can go in the break away and surprise and maybe win a stage.
We also have a B team. We have some good riders there who went to the Tour of Mauritania like Cristian Lokossou, He is a good climber. He is a good rider who has the confidence.
We want to see if we compare last year and this year and see what they’ve learned since last year.
Last year the team started from kilometre 0, everyone was fighting in the wind himself and were behind the peloton. So I want to see each rider now that he can ride toward front of the group. Even if it’s for 50 kilometres or 100 kilometres. There will be big improvement.
We have some big teams at the race like Morocco and Mauritius and two teams from Europe. I want to see if my Benin riders are able to follow the other teams who are more experienced than them.
Last year, when the wind started blowing, not even very hard, all of the Benin riders were out of the peloton because they didn’t have the skills. I want to see and compare after one year how they can ride in the rain and wind. From there, we will see how we can improve.
What's your long term strategy for the cycling development in Benin?
First of all in our strategy is to really help the riders understand cycling. It's something can change their life when they become a professional. We want to help them to understand how to use the cycling technology, how to use strava, trainingpeaks.
It's helping the riders to understand, first of all, they are responsible for achieving the goal to become a good rider. They must believe and every good chance they have, they must use it to build their career.
We will continue with the strategy to help them believe in themselves, using technology to help them develop. Then if they sign for a team in Europe, it’s not new for them.
Thanks for reading!
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Thanks for doing this interview. He really is quite remarkable.