As we head into November, it is over a month since the World Championships circus packed up and shipped out of Kigali (Rwanda). There was no real surprise in the Men Elite race with the unbeatable Tadej Pogacar taking the rainbow stripes (again), contrasting with the lovely moment in the Women’s Elite race when Canada’s Magdeleine Vallieres took the women’s race, her only win in 2025!
On the Africa side, there were no medals. This was what we expected with the course design as it was. Kim Le Court was probably the closest chance of a podium, and her eighth place in the Women’s Elite race was one of the main highlights. That was coupled with Ethiopian rising star Tsige Kahsay Kiros, who came seventh in the Women’s Junior Road Race. Eritrea’s Nahom Efriem, was another bright spot, coming in eleventh in the Men’s Junior Road Race.
Kim has signed a contract with her AG Insurance -Soudal team till 2028, and we will share some exciting news on the two young Junior riders mentioned above in the coming days. Exciting times! You can read our full review of the World Championships on our Newswire service.
What Is Next For African Cycling?
Further to the record-breaking 140+ African male and female riders signed to UCI World Tour/Pro Continental/Continental teams in 2025, we hope that 2026 will see a similar number confirmed in the ongoing contract window in the off-season.
A good number of these riders raced for the seven African registered UCI Continental Teams in 2025. We hope these teams will continue into 2026. The Madar Pro Cycling Team, out of Algeria with local and South African riders, had a brilliant 2025 season. They are talking about growth for 2026, and more African riders signing so great news there!
However, we believe the Java-Inovotec Men’s team (Rwanda) will not continue into 2026 as a Continental Team. This will see 13 riders from Rwanda, Ethiopia and Uganda on the market. There are rumours in the French language media of a new Men’s Continental team out of Algeria. We will monitor and share when anything substantial is confirmed.
So what’s next?
African Continental Championships 2025…or 2026?
In a bizarre move, after being cancelled in the summer (scheduled for August 2025), from 19-23 November, the 2025 African Continental Cycling Championships (ACCC) will take place in SE Kenya.
Though the 2025 Championships have been hastily arranged this year, all points gained and jerseys won will actually count towards the 2026 season.
In a further administrative issue, if the 2026 ACCC take place before mid-October 2026, all results, points and jerseys won in Kenya will be void! This does not exactly inspire commitment to the Kenya event next month. We know that several of the big names of African cycling are simply not attending.
At what point do people truly question the decision-making ability of those in charge of these decisions?
Africa 2026? Key Focus Areas For 54 African Cycling Federations
Once the ACCC are out of the way, with the legacy of the first ever Africa-hosted World Champs still fresh in minds, the leaders of the 54 African Cycling Federations registered with the UCI, and Yao Allah Kaoume – the new President of the Confederation of African Cycling (CAC), need to get some real work done.
They need to form a coherent plan to focus on using their limited budgets on the most vital element of what a Cycling Federation is for: finding, testing, and developing young riders.
We are sadly not off to a good start…
The recent announcement by CAC of an in-person African Cycling Awards event in Kigali next month is a non-core area of focus. The awards have actually existed since 2012, with around 25 judges with an in-depth knowledge of African cycling. This has been working well for years virtually.
Announcing a high cost, in-person event is purely for the vanity of CAC and the executives of African Cycling Federations. We cannot see many cyclists wanting to travel to Rwanda, again, in the off-season. Every dollar wasted on hotels and travel is a dollar not spent on cycling development or equipment.
The new President of CAC, who announced the creation of this new event, needs to quickly get a handle on what his role is actually about. It is not about wasting their (we assume… tight) budget on ANOTHER event (alongside the UCI Congress, the CAC Congress etc…) for the executives, and not the athletes.
Transparency with African Federations
Let Us Crunch Some CAC Numbers…
- FIFTY FOUR African Cycling Federations are registered with the UCI. This means up to 54 Federations are sending delegates around the world to UCI and CAC events for executives throughout the year.
- TWENTY ONE African Cycling Federations – or 38% – managed to register any UCI points in 2025.
- TWENTY African Cycling Federations attended the 2024 African Continental Championships.
- TWENTY African Cycling Federations did not send a rider to the World Championships in Kigali.
- EIGHTEEN African Cycling Federations held domestic National Cycling Championships in 2025 – only ONE THIRD of all African Cycling Federations.
The reason we wanted to deep dive into these numbers is that, in our opinion, the sole reason for the existence of any African Cycling Federation is to find, develop and support young athletes.
Having had four years of notice on an African-based World Champs, intense support from the UCI through the World Cycling Centre’s incredible #Africa2025 programme, and various other external influences, the investigation into what hasn’t happened, what should have happened, and what should happen, should focus squarely on the leadership of the 54 African Cycling Federations.
National Championships Should be a Requirement
The last point above is the most vital one for us. For a African Cycling Federation to be anyway credible, they must host a UCI-recognised National Championships with some regular supporting domestic bike races.
CAC and the UCI should now mandate this across the continent, as the continent’s commitment to its side of the bargain in building the legacy of the World Championships being granted to Africa.
Among the eighteen nations arranging their own National Championships is the expertise, the contacts, the suppliers and the knowhow to help any of the other 36 nations missing a National Championships to organise their own. There is no fathomable excuse for these events not to happen. Unless, the focus of those Federation leaders is not on domestic development, but rather international travel, the day rate paid by the UCI for attending their events and the other non-cycling perks of the role.
Is it Really Money?
Now folk will quickly bring up budget and resources but we don’t believe this is honestly a legitimate excuse.
If THIRTY FOUR nations can afford to send riders to (mainly) DNF at the World Championships, they can afford to run a National Championships. If their young athletes are being asked to race against the world’s best, it is essential the Federations prepare them as much as possible, or they arguably should really not have used their precious budget sending riders to Rwanda.
Algeria, the third ranked nation in the Africa Tour seem to have made this bold decision. Looking at the course, the riders they have, the costs involved, they decided not to go. Around the time of the World Champs, they held a training camp for over thirty young women. Was this a better use of their precious budget than a vanity trip to the World Championships? We tend to think so…
With the increased glamour and trappings of a week in Montreal in September 2026 as compared to being in Kigali, will we see an increase in African Cycling Federation delegates (and their ‘other halves’) heading to that event, to the detriment of deciding to spend the time and money developing their riders to actually be able to finish a World Champs race?
A Real Knowledge of Cycling Should Now Be A Pre-Requisite for Federations
Another key item that needs to really needs to discussed is whether the leadership of CAC, and Africa’s Cycling Federations truly understand cycling, and have the passion for the sport, rather than the travel and other benefits of the roles they have?
So let’s look at the Executive Committee of CAC first:
- On 17 February 2025, Yao Allah-Kouamé of Ivory Coast was elected as President of CAC.
- Ivory Coast has never had a professional cyclist and did not organise a National Championships in 2025. They were ranked 20/21 African nations in 2025, with 16 UCI points.
- Aymane Ali Hassan (Egypt) and Louis Kamsu Ethman (South Sudan) were elected as the Vice Presidents.
- Egypt were ranked 16/21 in 2025
- South Sudan are not ranked at all and have not had a UCI point since 2009
- Ignace Amédée Béréwoudougou (Burkina Faso) was elected Treasurer, Burkina Faso are ranked 19/21
- Dr. Vedvin Jaïka (Cameroon) was voted as CAC Secretary General. Cameroon are, thankfully, ranked #7 but with the majority of their 249 UCI points coming from domestic activities.
Where are Eritrea (3,569 points), South Africa (1,113 points), Algeria (1,003 points), Mauritius (654 points)? These are all nations with significant heritage and pedigree of developing young riders all the way up to the Tour de France? How can the CAC Management Committee be credible, understand the guidance coming from the cycling community at the UCI, or shape the direction of African cycling with no understanding of it?
Over eight days in Rwanda, we took a look at the Federations present and a very alarming data point became clear. Besides a very small number, many of the individual cycling federations’ leaders have any real professional cycling experience.
Hire Experienced Former African Professional Cyclists
In reality, a Federation president does not have to have cycling experience if they have a highly experienced cyclist as their Head Coach or Technical Director, but at least one of the two surely must be compulsory.
We are sure if we were to take a look at the National Football Federations across Africa, either the President or the Head Coach of each would have the requisite knowledge of the specific sport they represent?
It is time for the Ministry of Sport for each of these nations to take a good hard look at their cycling division and decide if it is fit for purpose?
For context, Jacques Landry, the Director of the World Cycling Centre (WCC) is a former Olympic cyclist for Canada; and JP van Zyl, the Director of the WCC’s South Africa hub, had a distinguished cycling career, racing World Championships and World Cups worldwide. The Board of Team Africa Rising and our partners have representatives with the same level of experience.
Current and Future African Coaches
There are literally hundreds of ex professional cyclists looking for coaching roles, including many from Africa. And like soccer, they do not have to be from the country for whom they could work.
There are many French and English speaking ex World Tour professionals who want to build careers in cycling. Can they not emulate the many foreigners working in soccer across Africa?
The perfect example is ex World Tour and double Olympic cyclist Adrien Niyonshuti (Rwanda). Adrien is now working as the Head Coach of the Benin Cycling Federation. In addition, Niyonshuti’s old team-mate the famous Daniel Teklehaimanot is now coaching the incredible machine that is Eritrea’s U23 programme, with his countryman Natnael Berhane guiding young Eritreans onto his team in Turkey, Istanbul Büyükşehir Belediye Spor Türkiye (CT).
Algeria’s Azzedine Lagab, 39, who also made his mark during the era of Berhane, Niyonshuti, and other African cyclists racing at the highest level worldwide, might be ready to retire after this season after the great year he and the Madar Pro Cycling Team had. Rumors suggest Lagab may join the ranks of coaches and sport directors, which would be a significant achievement for African cycling. He is the longest-serving and most successful cyclist for Algeria.
We just saw the news that Nic Dlamini has signed to be a coach/mentor for the new JR Racing Team in Ethiopia, which in itself if a good thing, but as an African rider who recently raced the Tour de France, is there not an African National Federation willing to take Dlamini on for a year or two to help build and professionalise their efforts?
Should the UCI be proactively asking ex-riders who take their UCI Level 1/2/3 coaching courses to do secondments to African (or other developing) nations as part of their learning and development?
“There Should Be More African Races”
This is a line we hear regularly, and of course, more races are better than fewer races. However, let’s just look at the current ‘Africa Tour’ for a moment.
In addition to the ACCC and individual National Championships, there are actually seven UCI stage races already taking place across the continent. The races are in chrono order, the Tours of: Sahel, Algeria, Rwanda, Benin, Cameroon, Mauritius (cancelled due to schedule clash with ACCC) and Chantal Biya. In addition, there are four one-day GP races around these events. There is also an eighth: the Tour du Faso which lost its UCI status for two years due to allowing a Russian team to take part in 2024. It should return to UCI status in 2026. Alongside this, there are some other amateur level stage races across the continent which could achieve UCI status with some investment, like the Tour of Lunsar and the Tour of Ghana.
Now the main point we would make about the eight tours mentioned above, is that only the Tour of Rwanda has achieved UCI 2.1 status, attracting good international teams and therefore good sponsorship. We believe there is much more merit in CAC, the UCI, Rwanda Cycling spending their time and expertise helping several of the seven 2.2 ranked races get to a 2.1 level. This helps everyone.
In a backwards step, there are rumours that the organisers of the Tour du Rwanda is trying to get the race promoted to the UCI 2.Pro level. As only one National Team (the host nation) can race at this level, this move would reduce the ability for several African federations to send their teams to a high level event on the continent.
The Challenge with Adding Races
Creating new races, and trying to fit them into an already busy world calendar, has some major challenges to consider:
Firstly, the costs are significant, and for two key constituents: many people are just not aware that “intra-Africa” travel is not cheap — often 4-5x the price of intra-Europe travel, for instance. The costs of a wider pan-African programme for national teams to attend would be very high.
Secondly, the costs for the host to organise these races and supply accommodation, transport, and infrastructure are high. With few pan-African brands in reality, sponsors must be found locally, and the high costs are prohibitive. These sponsorship deals need to be multi-year to deliver true value to both parties and to allow the UCI to consider a 2.2 designation.
We believe with eight UCI 2.2 and 2.2 designated stage races, each with ideally a one-day UCI GP before or after, 25+ National Championships and a good annual ACCC should deliver a strong African racing platform. This will also give young African athletes UCI points, wider attention and a chance to race at a higher level worldwide.
Africa Needs Collaborative Leadership From Within
Importantly, none of the above requires handouts from the UCI or others.
The expertise and knowledge for all of the suggestions above lie within Africa and those who have worked on the continent in cycling: from how to test juniors, building a training programme, organising a team house, setting up a virtual training hub, to even running a multi-stage UCI 2.1 race.
Now, can African cycling unite and work together to deliver a coherent and successful plan? This is surely the entire reason for CAC to exist?
The next two to three years should really be about infrastructure, the sweat and tears of organising local races and testing hundreds of young riders. It is not going to be ‘sexy’, but it is vital work.
We urge the African Cycling Federations to join in one voice and ‘encourage’ CAC to restructure its leadership team to include real cycling experts, focus on the hard work needed, rather than any more vanity or superficial projects.
