Spotlight on Rwanda - Will the next Worlds hosts be invisible during Kigali 2025?

A detailed look at cycling development in Rwanda, the history, their biggest riders and the challenges

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In 12 months' time, the eyes of the cycling world will focus in on East Africa and the land of a thousand hills, Rwanda. The question is, a year out from the first World Championships in Africa, will any Rwandan riders be remotely competitive? 

Photo by Chris Boland on Unsplash

Rwanda Fact File (As of 10th October 2024)

• UCI Men’s Nations Ranking: 49th

• UCI Men’s Nations Africa Tour Ranking: 6th

• 2024 Men’s UCI points: 741

• UCI Women’s Nations Ranking: 38th

• UCI Men’s Nations Africa Tour Ranking: 5th

• 2024 UCI Women’s UCI points: 734

• UCI team registered riders: 15

• Continental Teams: 2 (May Stars, Java - Inovotec Pro Team)

• Top UCI ranked riders in 2024:

  • Women, Diane Ingabire (124th, 347pts)

  • Men, Moise Mugisha (489th, 172pts).

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Kigali 2025 looms

History. There's been a lot of that made in African cycling over the past few years. In 12 months’ time, the 2025 World Championships in Kigali should be the crowning moment for a continent where the sport is booming.

I say 'should', because the Championships have not been devoid of problems. The arrests of the federation's two top officials, accused of favouritism, forgery and falsification, preceded the resignation of the Championship's organisers who were later replaced by Golazo and ASO. More recently, national federations are reported to be considering their place in the Kigali Worlds do to astronomical costs, twice that of the Worlds in Wollongong in 2022. There are also recent reports of cycling clubs in Rwanda attempting to oust the sitting president of the Rwandan Cycling Federation.

Kigali 2025 - National Federations consider participation at Rwanda Worlds due to sky-high costs

Then there is the dire situation around rider development in Rwanda, which led their most decorated former rider Adrien Niyonshuti to tell me "I don't believe we have one Rwandan rider who can finish the World Championships right now." The hosts could be almost invisible in their home Championships, especially on a road race course among the hardest a Worlds has ever seen.

On the flip side, these Championships will inspire thousands of young Rwandans and Africans to ride and race bikes. The momentum for African cycling is higher than ever right now, and the Kigali Worlds could supercharge that movement.

The history - Team Africa Rising

The growth of cycling in Rwanda is thanks in a massive way to Team Africa Rising. Jock Boyer, a former American professional rider, helped to launch Team Rwanda in 2007.

Team Rwanda “focused on exponentially growing the sport of cycling in Rwanda,” it says on the Team Africa Rising website. They “identified, established, and developed a group of professional cyclists and the infrastructure needed to allow them to compete for many years on the international stage.” Team Africa Rising launched the Africa Rising Cycling Center (ARCC) in Musanze, Rwanda, in 2014. To this day, the ARCC remains central to development efforts in Rwanda, although Team Africa Rising pulled out of working in the country a few years ago.

Boyer coached Adrien Niyonshuti, the first and only rider from Rwanda to race in the WorldTour, riding for Team Dimension Data. Niyonshuti never rode a Grand Tour in his career, but did compete in races such as the Tour de Suisse and Volta Catalunya.

The only other Rwandan to have ever raced for a professional team was Joseph Areruya, who rode for Team Delko-Marseille in 2018 and 2019. This was after racing for one year with the Dimension Data development squad and winning a stage of the U23 Giro in 2017.

Since Team Africa Rising removed themselves from Rwanda due to a number of issues on the side of the federation, cycling development in the country hasn’t been the same. In fact, the evidence may suggest that it has been largely inneffectual.

Rwanda’s primary race, and only UCI event, is the Tour du Rwanda, which first took place in the 1980s at amateur level. It was upgraded to a UCI 2.2 level event in 2009 and remained there for ten years, half of those editions being won by Rwandans such as Moise Mugisha and Joseph Areruya.

In 2019, the race was upgraded again to become a 2.1 level event. This brought with it more UCI points and a higher level of racing. Four of the last six editions have been won by Eritreans, with Spaniard Cristian Rodriguez winning the title in 2021 and Great Britain’s Joe Blackmore winning this year. Since the race became a 2.1 level event, there has been no Rwandan winner and just one Rwandan stage winner - Mugisha in 2022.

The women lead the way