Kigali 2025: The programme looking to make African juniors competitive for the biggest race of their lives

Global Peloton speaks to UCI World Cycling Centre Africa Director JP van Zyl about the Africa 2025 strategy investing in young African riders

UCI World Cycling Centre riders stand on the Tour de France stage alongside coach Tsgabu Grmay. Image: ASO

In 2025, the cycling world will descend on Africa for the continent’s first ever UCI Road World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda.

The races will be played out on a brutally tough course in the ‘Land of a Thousand Hills’. It’s being talked about as African cycling’s biggest moment, but with a parcours so challenging, how many African riders will truly be able to compete for the podium?

South African Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio has already viewed the course and is targeting a good result in Kigali. Her trade team-mate from Mauritius, Kim Le Court, may also be an outsider for the women’s elite road race. Outside of that pair, how many Africans can really be competitive in a race too hard for the likes of Biniam Girmay?

There is a chance that Africa’s first Worlds will pass without a single African in a top-10 of any race. At a time when African cycling is supposed to be celebrated, the results on the road could undermine.

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Read more:

• These African riders are still looking for contracts for 2025

• 'Biniam will be remembered forever' -Tsgabu Grmay on what Girmay's Tour de France success means to African cycling

• How the UCI World Cycling Centre is aiming to globalise cycling

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The UCI World Cycling Centre is acutely aware of this problem, and the opportunity that Kigali 2025 presents to develop the next bunch of African stars. They have decided to invest heavily in Africa’s best junior riders in the hope that they can be competitive.

“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,” the UCI World Cycling Centre’s African regional director JP van Zyl told me for a recent feature for Rouleur.

“I'm not going to say we're going to get medals,” he added.

The UCI have been working closely with a group of young riders in the junior and under-23 men’s and women’s categories for the last couple of seasons as part of their Africa 2025 strategy.