We are excited to bring our #FromThePaddock series back to life, this time from the very warm Bénin, in West Africa – ahead of the start on Monday 28 April of the 2025 Tour du Bénin. We will update this live blog daily with content, interviews, imagery and all the things you guys want from a bike race!

Our work here at Africa Rising Cycling is based on donations from you, the amazing people who follow the stories of these young athletes across Bénin, and all the projects we work on across Africa. Please do CLICK HERE to make a donation to help us continue our work. Thank you!

4 May: So today is the last day of this wonderful week of cycling, and we finish with two big events for cycling in Bénin: the first ever para-race in the country, and then the Grand Prix de Cotonou.

So first, the amazing para-race. A real passion of the Cycling President, the race was a chance to give differently abled people a chance to show their abilities. Ten riders lined up – eight men and two women – and they took on a lap of the GP course.

The race was won by the gentleman on the far right of the picture above, and we spoke to several of the participants after the race and they were so happy to have this opportunity to take part in this race.

Bénin Cycling President Romuald Hazoumé with the checkered flag to set the para-athletes on their way.

Onto the main event, the Men’s Elite Grand Prix de Cotonou, a UCI 1.2 rated race so lots of points on offer for the top placed riders. 78 riders were entered by the 14 teams present (Full Start-list HERE) and the winner of the overall Tour du Bénin was the hot favourite (according to ProCyclingStats), with Ibrahi Esssabahy (Agadir), Tom Wijfje (Universe Cycling Team) and El Houcain Sabbahi (Agadir) the three next rated riders on recent form – see below,

Though none of the local Beninois riders are in the top ten, its a sign of how far this race has come in terms of international recognition. Also, the work Adrien Niyonshuti is doing with the Bénin national squad is really showing, with several of the young riders really showing some pedigree across the week.

So the riders lined up to taker on the this 107.6km city circuit course, with multiple fast laps around some tight turns, round-abouts, a very tight hairpin and some big wide avenues with head and side winds.

The guys from Agadir Vélo Propulsion looked confident, and we expected them to set the pace early on, with Tshenolo Pro Cycling and Universe Cycling Team all doing the work.

There were attacks from the start and multiple breakaways and many were caught. As the riders came into sight for the first time from the start/finish line, we saw a group of five riders off the front. One from Cameroon, two from Tshenolo, and solo riders from Universe and Agadir. This break stayed away for most of the race, with several chase groups forming but none really getting their act together.

We were most happy to be allowed the special privilege of being on the back of a moto for the first and final two laps of the race and we broadcasted on Instagram Live to give our followers a true feeling of the action. We were most lucky to right up close to the breakaway several times, the chase groups and then dropped back to see the peloton also.

We took a break from the race at the start/finish line for a couple of laps and watched as the chase groups tried to work together, with Christiaan Klopper showing clear frustration that they could not form a real chase. Reinardt was in the breakaway group so he couldn’t really push too hard.

The peloton accelerated and as we peeled off from our second session of Instagram Live, and the group was clearly going to stay away, and with Reinardt out in front, and looking strong, he won the sprint with ease to take his second win of the week. Congrats to him and his team!

Full results available on ProCyclingStats as always #WhereElse

So that is it, the week comes to an end, the Live Blog is finished. Many thanks to everyone for tuning in, see you again soon and remember to follow us on all our social media channels, and maybe make a donation to support our work on our website #AfricaRising

3 May: Stage Six is the final stage of the 2025 Tour du Bénin and is a 105km run from the town of Toffo to the centre of Cotonou, with the finish line right in front of the impressive 30m Beninoise Amazone statue.

From the original 80 riders, we have only seen nine riders drop out so 71 riders signed on this morning. The race was due to start at 08h00 this morning, but had some delays so got going at 08h40 in the end.

As predicted in our post yesterday, attacked began pretty much from the start in the town of Toffo but nothing really stuck for a while. Three riders got away before the race left Toffo, and the race stretching as the peloton left Toffo, with – as you can see – the Tshenolo Pro Cycling train setting the pace.

After 28.5km, at the Carrefour roundabout, a group of three riders made a breakaway stick, these were

Rodrigue Kuéré Nounawé of SNH Vélo Club (Cameroun), Rawende Moucaila (Burkina Faso) et Romuald Soudji (Bénin). These riders steadily build a 14s gap. With none of them GC contenders, the peloton seems pretty relaxed about them going down the road. Another Cameroonian, Aurelien Achetkuenyinyi (SNH Vélo Club), jumps off the peloton and soon joins the breakaway.

5km before the first Intermediate Sprint, another couple of riders manage to join the leading group, so the group is now composed of Kamal Mahroug (Agadir Vélo Propulsion, Morocco), Fabrice Chofor (SNH Vélo Club, Cameroun), Harouna Ilboudo (Burkina Faso), Jonathan Thiré (Born’Heures, France), Glorad Saizonou (Benin), Zachary Marriage (7Eleven Cliqq Roadbike Philippines), and Gabriel Odumu John and Francis Odinakachukwu (Nigeria).

The sprint was competitive and a sign of things to come, with Zac Marriage taking the points, with Francis Odinakachukwu (Nigeria) and Jonathan Thiré (Born’Heures, France) in third.

Thiré, Marriage and Chofor then launched an attack from the breakaway straight after the sprint, with the others giving chase and several bringing the attack back.

Sadly a mechanical took Kamal Mahroug (Agadir) out of the breakaway at this point, and the breakaway had got the gap up to a healthy 1m27s and were working together well. As the second Intermediate Sprint loomed, the pace increased. Zac Marriage again took the points, the young Aussie was clearly feeling good today, with Harouna Ilboudo (Burkina Faso) in second and Glorad Saizonou (Benin) taking third place.

Only 27km of the race to go at this point, will the breakaway stick…

Another mechanical hits the group and sadly Nigeria’s Gabriel Odumu John dropped from the breakaway. It must have been a bad one as he clearly didn’t manage to get it fixed before the peloton passed and he finished +14mins down at the end of the stage.

The peloton accelerates and there is now only a 6s gap as the race enters the suburbs of Cotonou town. Francis, the second Nigerian also drops from the break group with a mechanical, but manages to join the peloton before it passes him.

As we hit 10km to go, Zak Marriage breaks off the front and a rider chases him down. As mentioned early, this guy is clearly feeling strong today and smells a chance. The race gets a bit crazy as lots of movement, big accelerations and a whole section of cobbles for the riders to negotiate.

Zak Marriage accelerates again solo and comes home with the win with a 32s gap in the end from the peloton, lead by the maillot jaune Reinardt Janse van Rensburg.

We spoke to Reini at the end and he was a bit disappointed, the race organisers didn’t give the peloton much information so they couldn’t reel in the breakaway quite how they wanted – but that’s 2.2 bike racing with no radios, you have to adapt to the conditions.

Huge congratulations to Reinardt for the race win, just +18s to his race-long rival Ibrahim Essaby (Agadir) and +39 to Tom Wijfje (Universe Cycling Team). We should give credit here to Ibrahim as he was the first U23 rider in the race, with Zak Marriage (7Eleven Cliqq Roadbike Philippines)’s winning gap on the final stage bouncing him up to second in the U23 and sixth overall.

Reinardt also took the points jersey with a dominant 47 points with Tom Wijfje at 38. Congratulations to team Agadir Vélo Propulsion also, for clinching the team GC, by just +11s to Tshenolo. Top work by the Moroccan team as it shows how strong they are in just their first year as a UCI Continental team.

The Benin riders also had a lot to celebrate, as – in the words of their head coach Adrien Niyonshuti – they showed a huge amount of progress since the 2024 Tour du Benin. Coach Adrien is over the moon that all his riders finished the race, with Glorad Saizonou just pipping Ricardo Sodjede to the ‘Best Beninese jersey, by just 1s after 14 hours of racing!

Full results are up on ProCyclingStats as always HERE #WhereElse

But that was not all today, a few moments after the men’s winners had had their moment on the stage, all thoughts turned to the successful start of the first ever Women’s Grand Prix Ville de Cotonou, scheduled to start at 14:00 local time.

It felt entirely appropriate that Benin’s 30m-high Monument Amazone, was proudly looking over the start-line area as the women assembled, got their race numbers and made any final mechanical changes.

We got confirmation of the start-list, with 19 women signed on, with 18 from four African nations (Benin, Burkina Faso, Nigeria & Togo) and one slightly random French woman! With two of Benin’s best young riders away in Europe training with the UCI WCC #Africa2025 initiative, this gave some of Benin’s younger riders a chance, but several without significant race experience.

This is a race that Benin’s cycling president (Romauld Hazoumé) has wanted to get going for several years, and he proudly stood with the riders for a photograph before this historic moment for women’s cycling in Benin and wider West Africa.

It was time to start and the ladies set off on four laps of a street circuit in Cotonou, with a total race distance of 54km. Around mid-first lap, Burkina Faso’s Awa Bamogo launched a fast attack with Tawakalt Yekeen of Nigeria and surprisingly the peloton let them go a long way up the road. Sadly Tawakalt had a mechanical and had to drop out of the race on lap one. The peloton also allowed Awa’s team-mate, and national champion Lamoussa Zoungrana, to peel off the front and join her at the front.

Perhaps it was lack of race knowledge or over-confidence that they would reel these two in, but the peloton didn’t really react. We heard later that an exasperated Benin head coach Adrien Niyonshuti was arguing in the cars with the Nigeria team’s DS to get their teams to work together and bring the break back, but to no avail and the two Burkina Faso riders got to the finish line easily, with over four minutes on the peloton.

As the two Burkinese were engulfed by journalists, the peloton arrived, with the assembled crowd going wild to see two Beninese riders on the front, and as Charlotte Metoevi and Hermionne Ahouissou on the front and sprinting well, with Charlotte putting down the watts to take third, with Hermionne in fouth.

Coach Adrien was happy(ish) with the results:

“Today was their first time and first experience of a major race like this, so next year they will know what to do, and won’t have as much stress before the race. Burkina Faso, they take today and thats ok, but next year my riders will have trained much better and will be ready to go and will come fighting! We got third and fourth today, and that is in fact a good result, as he was worried about the sprint finishing skills of the Nigerians, based on their Track skills but my team beat them to the line!

Congratulations again to Awa – who raced in 2024 for the Team Torelli Women’s Pro Conti team – and at just 25, she has a lot more to give to the world of cycling and we hope another team picks her up soon.

Full results have been posted on ProCyclingStats as always #WhereElse

So as we head back to our hotel, there is only the one more day of racing here in Benin, and it is a brilliant looking event tomorrow, the Grand Prix du Cotonou, which was recently upgraded to UCI 2.1 on the UCI Africa Tour, so many points up for grabs for the various teams here. Should be a great race!

All photos kindly provided by the official race photographers of Benin Cycling Federation, and ourselves.

2 May: It is Stage Five day, and we have a fairly flat 107.5km stage from Ouinhi to Porto-Novo, on the south coast of Bénin.

As always, we caught up with Bénin head coach Adrien Niyonshuti about the stage ahead and any special preparations. As he checked the tyre pressures of the team, Adrien told us Porto-Novo is the home town of 23 year old Ricardo Sodjede – currently in the white jersey of ‘Best Beninois’ in the race – so he might try to do something today, but will need help from at least one team-mate, and the GC teams to let any breakaway go. Lets see what happens…

We also sought out the Mali national team as they are quietly going about their business in this race, but should be highlighted as they had two riders finish in the top 10 of the stage yesterday, with rider Daouda Djire sitting in #9 on the GC. Top work by these guys, and talking to their Directeur Sportif, he and their Federation are most pleased with the performance so far. The DS also said the boys were feeling fresh so expected them to do well on today’s stage also.

So after a one-hour delay to a delayed departure and a slow convoy on the unpaved roads, the race started around 10h20, with 1.2km of neutral on the unpaved roads outside the townhall of the town of Ouinhi…

…and we positioned our media car just up the road from the red Commissaire car you can see in the video above. As the 0KM mark was passed, with tarmac taking over from the dirt road, we accelerated to a safe distance as the attacks came thick and fast immediately! We saw solo attempts by Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Bénin and several others but none of them stuck for a while, as the peloton reacted to these and shut them down.

At around 30km though, six riders managed to form a good group and began to move away from the peloton. With the group made up of 2x SNH Vélo Club (Cameroon), 2x Bénin, 1x Burkina Faso and 1x Team Born’Heures, so no real GC contenders, the peloton was happy for them to ride away. The gap maxed out at around 2m30s.

Within the stage there were two Intermediate Sprints, one at 32km, one at 63km. The first was won by Iboudo Harouna of Burkina Faso, with the second won by Chofor Fabrice of SNH Vélo Club.

Coach Adrien would have been jumping up and down in his team car (he later confirmed he was!) about the fantastic work of Ricardo Sodjede and his team-mate Rémi Sowou who truly committed to the breakaway with their fellow riders. After a week of 75% committed breakaways, this one felt like the real deal (see clip below).

At around 20km to go, we dropped behind the breakaway to take some pictures and video and Race Radio coincidentally updated that the gap was two minutes. With no time-keeping moto to be seen in quite a while, we asked permission to overtake the breakaway, and with both our right side passenger windows down, we shouted the time gap to the six riders, and got several finger lifts from the handlebars in thanks.

With our job done, we moved back to our position around 200m ahead. We saw the heads drop a little, the pace increased and the breakaway committed, as they realised that this race was on!

As we entered the outskirts of Porto-Novo, at around the 10km to go mark, the sole Frenchman lost contact with the break, as well as one other rider we couldn’t identify and four riders started to hit a series of roundabouts hard and fast. It was amazing to also see the roadside full of children and fans shouting and cheering on their two Beninois heroes!

No! Much to our sadness, one of these was a sharp left turn and with minimal marshals on site, Ricardo, who was leading the group went one turn too far, and had to break and turn back. To make it worse, he had passed the entrance to the two-lane road so had to pedal hard to get his speed back and rode around 500m to the next gap in the pavement to rejoin the three riders.

Our hearts sank a little as we knew the breakaway had to be perfect to hold off the now 1-minute back accelerating peloton, and sadly after we left the breakaway to secure our camera position on the finish line, we heard the dreaded “The bunch are all back together…” and around the right handed corner about 300m from the finish line came the mass of the peloton. The bright yellow of Reinardt Janse van Rensburg was prominent and his real pedigree (9 Grand Tours: 6 x Tour de France, 3 = Vuelta) showed as he sprinted and held off the challengers nicely.

As we gave him a well-earned (0% alcohol!) beer – which is becoming a habit now as we have delivered one the last couple of stages – he looked happy, collected several more jerseys (see our joke homage about this to 1975’s epic movie Jaws on our TikTok page HERE) and we think that might be the race done now with his gap being 12s and only the final stage to go. Full results on ProCyclingStats as always. Race isn’t over till its over though!

We caught up with Adrien after the race, after he spoke extensively with RFI’s Olivier Pron, he told us how happy he was with these two riders for doing exactly what he mentioned before the race. They really showed some good race-craft today, and that Bénin begins at this level.

It is important to remember Adrien is only in his third year here, and things took a lot of taking apart before rebuilding. You can see in his eyes that he knows there is improvement starting to show, and he can take these guys to the next level.

Talking of Adrien, its important to mention again that the Rising From Ashes documentary from 2012 has recently been released for free on Youtube (you can watch it HERE) just three months ago and has amassed 113,000 views already! As one comment says:

“It has to be by far the best cycling film out there. Inspiring. It has all the emotions that one can take. A remarkable achievement of perseverance. It continues to today. Bravo.”

If you would like to make a donation to help with our work with Benin’s men and women, please do visit our DONATION PAGE on our website HERE.

More tomorrow as we have both the final stage of the Men’s Tour du Bénin, and the debut of the women’s Grand Prix du Cotonou!

1 May: Today’s stage four was a 110.9km run from the town of Bohicon to Athièmè in West Bénin.

With Tshenolo’s surprising fourth finish in the TTT, Reinardt’s lead has dropped to just 6 seconds, ahead of Agadir Vélo Propulsion’s Ibrahim Essabahy. Tom Wijfje from the Dutch team Universe Cycling is also moving into contention with their win, and he is just 27seconds behind, with France’s Edouard Bonnefoix of the 7Eleven Cliqq Roadbike Philippines also moving up to 3rd place, just +24s behind. A decent breakaway on Stage Four could mix things up a bit at the front.

It turned into a pretty standard stage with attacks from the start, with Tshenolo Pro Cycling’s Christiaan Klopper trying to marshal his fellow riders to get the break into good shape. We were driving just ahead and you could feel his frustration, with the other breakaway riders not fully committing to the attack. You can see Christaan pulling hard on our video HERE.

Sadly the breakaway was doomed to be caught and as we waited at the finish line, we saw the peloton approach the last 500m all together, with the main sprinters up front, the yellow jersey prominent among them. From the left side, Dutchman Tom Wijfje on Universe Cycling Team came up fast and won the sprint well.

Reinardt Janse van Rensburg retains the yellow jersey by 8s, with Tom Wijfje moving up to third place at just +23s. Full results on ProCyclingStats as always.

Tomorrow’s Stage Five could be interesting if he can get in a breakaway without the other GC riders, but Reinardt and Ibrahim are wily riders so this is not too likely, unless there is a crash or similar.

Today we also met with Tiemoko Diamoutene of Team Mali, who are having a great race, with two riders finishing in the top ten of the stage, and one rider now in 9th in the overall GC. We should definitely keep an eye on Mali in this race as they are getting stronger as each day passes.

We also recognised his bike as being one of the UCI World Cycling Centre blue Scott bikes, and he confirmed he is a graduate of the WCC Centre in South Africa. He told us how much he learnt from JP van Zyl at the centre, a story we hear constantly from all riders who have been to the centre. If you would like to learn more about the WCC, visit the UCI website, and we recently wrote a story about their development programme, their strategy and their success stories.

30 April: Stage three was the Team Time Trial (TTT) today, a fairly undulating course of just 25km. Predictions were that there could be some big GC changes potentially among the favourites so a lot of teams were focused on this stage.

We arrived around 30 minutes before the first team (Togo) set off, with each team starting every three minutes. it was wonderful to see Adrien Niyonshuti (Bénin National Cycling Federation Head Coach) commandeer a traffic island near the start-line for this riders to set up a very sophisticated warm-up area for his team: see image below and some video footage HERE and HERE on our Instagram page.

This is in fact Team Bénin’s first ever UCI-level TTT, so just getting to the end together, as Adrien says in the first video, is the main aim at this point for these young riders.

Before we talk about the race some more, we wanted to take this moment to talk a little about our relationship with Wahoo, and Zwift also.

To step back a little: virtual training platforms have been instrumental in democratizing cycling globally, giving young riders a place to train/race domestically to reduce the expenditure needed to buy or rent top level bikes for pro racing, and also that one bike on a Wahoo trainer can be used by many riders. For the African riders, one must add to this significant travel costs, the uncertainty of visas, and finally homesickness and loneliness when away in Europe or Asia are also big factors for these riders.

Team Africa Rising pivoted to the virtual platform during the worldwide COVID-19 lockdown. No-one could travel, our riders were confined to their homes or small gatherings, so we started bringing in more Wahoo trainers and connecting the riders with the Zwift training and racing platform.

This is technology these young riders have never seen, but all adapt and pick it up so quickly, its wonderful to see. One of the earliest adopters was in Uganda. The Masaka Cycling Club built an entire clubhouse around the trainers and started attending all the e-racing events around the world.

We saw significant success and progress as the Masaka riders (both men and women) began to train and then race internationally on the platform. We then replicated the program in Bénin, working with the Bénin Cycling Federation. We now have over 150 trainers across seven different countries.

Virtual training and racing allows us to detect talent younger and more easily with real data. This data is also helpful to professional teams looking to sign African cyclists. A true success story is that of the young rider Florence Nakagwa from Masaka, who, through her on road and Zwift/Wahoo training, managed to secure a professional contract with the CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto pro team!

Instead of teams taking our word for, “this kid is really good!” we truly now have the data to back it up. We can manage this data and look at results in real time and from anywhere in the world. It’s been a huge gamechanger for African cycling development. We are seeing some brilliant improvements in Bénin among the women especially, with Georgette and Vanette (see video below) now included in the UCI ‘Africa 2025’ program and will be racing and training in France this summer, in preparation for the World Championships in September.

This simply would not have happened without the support of our donors and benefactors and we encourage you to make a donation to Team Africa Rising if you are able.

We currently are working on the big #AfricaZwifting project whereby we are getting even more young riders on smart trainers to get on Zwift. Many of these will be to countries which have never seen or used smart trainers, so we expect to see some wonderful stories come from these countries in time. We recently managed to deliver a Zwift Hub smart trainer to Goma in DRC, probably the most challenging environment in which to work this year, and with the area locked down, it has brought a welcome relief, and safe training to the men and women of Goma CC.

So, back to the race!

A Team Time Trial (TTT) is quite simply a race against the clock, and yourself. The whole team starts on their normal race bikes (Time Trial bikes were banned at this race) with some using more aerodynamic helmets for some marginal gains. The time of the third rider across the line is the time of the team, so expect to see 2-3 riders discarded during each run as they tire and their team-mates push on.

The UCI commissaire Sandro Coccioni oversees the vital processing of the timings for the TTT as the results could seriously effect the General Classification (GC) today….

…and the results are in…

Congratulations to Agadir Vélo Propulsion for the win, followed by 7Eleven Cliq Roadbike Philippines and Universe Cycling Team. Surprisingly, the Tshenolo team, who finished fast, came in fourth, dropping 20 seconds on the GC, so Reinardt’s lead drops to just six seconds. Full results on ProCyclingStats as always.

29 April: Stage two was a much more serious stage, with the riders having to cover 156.42km from Parakou to Savé. The road was going to be pretty straight all day, with small rolling hills most of the way.

As the 80 riders gathered for sign-on, we spoke to several, and the strategies for most teams were pretty guarded! Everyone now seems to have their eyes on the two big African pro teams here, Reinardt’s Tshenolo Pro Cycling (Club, South Africa), and El Houcine Sabbahi’s Agadir Velo Propulsion (UCI Continental, Algeria) and Reini looked focused when we saw him at the sign-on.

The two Bénin teams (National Team & Team Baobab World Cola) also all had their game-faces on, with head coach Adrien Niyonshuti scheming hard on how to get his young boys to the finish line in contention with the array of top African talent at this race.

With the 80 riders all correctly signed on, the wonderful moment on Stage Two of every stage race around the world is the gathering of the main race jerseys on the front-line – those of overall GC leader, best U23, Sprint/Points leader and ‘Best African’ – to lead off the race. With just a 2km neutral section, thoughts turn to what might happen…

…and as we passed the 0km marker in our media car just 200m ahead of the peloton, we discussed with our fellow passenger – the famous Olivier Pon of RFI/RFI Afrique and veteran of many African cycling races over many years – our predictions.

Olivier is here reporting for both RFI radio and written press, and was sure it would be a bunch sprint. Our man on the ground suggested a breakaway of 12-15 riders, if it went and they worked together, could make it!

Attacks from KM0 began!! And would continue for the first 20km or so, with no-one making a real gap, all attempts were stifled, big or small, and some were very big! Around half-way, a decent group of about 8 riders got a gap going and were working together well, but soon we saw the heads turning back and the pace fell off and the group was caught.

At that point, there was a big crash in the peloton with several riders going down, and several pretty badly cut up, ‘road rashed’ etc. At around the 100km mark, a smaller group of six riders attacked and this stayed away for a while, but with others not committing, two Moroccans from the Agadir team went off together at a strong pace and got the gap up to around three minutes.

We stopped to see them go by at 15km to the finish and they still had 2m30 gap so our prediction looked good (we later found out from riders that there was minimal comms to the peloton and on race radio about the gap – we fed this back to the organisers) so they thought it was around one minute! The Tshenolo team decided enough was enough and got their train together. Was impressive as they stripped the 2m15 gap in less than 10km and the peloton got back together.

We accelerated to get to the finish line and waited for the riders. The finish was up a slight incline (Biniam Girmay would have loved it!) and we saw riders from Tshenolo, Agadir, Universe Cycling Team and Team Born’Heures putting down big watts in the final 100m. It was close but El Houcaine Sabbahi took the win, a few centimetres ahead of Reinardt. Thokozani Mahlangu of Tshenolo finished third but was relegated to 41st place for pulling back another rider – a lesson to be learnt.

El Houcaine Sabbahi (centre) proudly holds his Moroccan flag on the podium, as the key jersey winners were presented to the big crowds here at the finish. It was a proper day of racing, and Reinardt’s lead in the GC sits at +36s to Algeria;s Ibrahim Essabahy, with four riders also just under one minute behind the South African.

We should give some real kudos to some of the other African riders also with Clovis Kamzong of SNH Vélo Club (Cameroon) & Thokozani Mahlangu of Tshenolo (South Africa) both at +45s; and two riders from Mali having a great race with 26yo Daouda Djire at +1m03 and 19yo Tiemoko Diamoutene at 2m05 – great riding by this young guy so far. It is brilliant to see 23yo Ricardo Sodjede (Bénin) in the game at 2m09 behind, this young talent has not had much racing so coach Adrien will be most happy at his work.

Full results of Stage Two can be found on ProCyclingStats, of course, as always HERE #WhereElse

Away from the racing, it is important for us to talk about development and the riders with whom we work here in Bénin, and today we want to share the story of Ezer Mensah, and his journey in cycling so far. Please do read our story about him HERE and if inspired by his story, please do make a donation to help us continue our work with these awesome young male and female riders in Bénin and across Africa.

28 April: Race day, Stage one. We arrived into Nikki around 9h00 in the morning, and a large crowd had gathered to see the awesome spectacle of a bike race departure!

The sign-on was a rather small table under a beautiful old tree, and riders attempted to sign-on with varying approaches to queueing being adopted! The Bénin team got VIP treatment and got to the front pretty easily, with a bit more of a free-for-all approach after this!

After sign-on, all the final checks are done on the bikes, tyre pressure being such a vital element in the modern day for bike racing, and an ex-pro like Adrien Niyonshuti (head coach of Bénin) checks all his riders’ bikes to ensure they are in the best condition they can be. He is a multi-year ex World Tour rider, and brings his experience to bear for all his Béninois riders – a serious competitive advantage.

The final team briefings take place with the riders and their Directeur Sportif (DS) and the 80 riders who successfully signed-on will then head to the start-line. Below you see the Team Baobab World Cola riders in deep discussion (fruitfully – see results!) with their DS prior to the race start.

and the waiting is over, the moment many of these riders, especially those from West Africa, have trained for and will be one of the biggest moments of their year, the start of the 2025 UCI 2.2 ME Tour du Bénin!

To recap what we said about this stage:

“It a 119km route from Nikki in the north east of the country, which headed due west and then due south to finish on a, most likely, sprint section back here in Parakou. There are two Intermediate Sprints in the race so expect the Bénin and other African teams to start the race pretty ferociously to ensure they get at least one jersey by the end of the stage.”

…and we were not wrong! The stage was shortened by 19km due to a damaged bridge, so all the teams knew it was going to be a full gas 100km race today, so the more organised and experienced teams were expected to dominate.

Congratulations to top-level sprinter Reinardt Janse van Rensburg for the solo win, he took a bunch of Intermediate Sprint points earlier in the race, and was clear he was feeling good. He is the top rider in the race, with nine Grand Tours under his belt, six x Tour de France, three x Vuelta.

You can hear our post-race interview(s) with Reini in English HERE, and Afrikaans HERE.

There was only one bad crash today, with a rider from Burkina Faso being taken out by a spectator sadly, but the Race Doctor was very professional and patched him up well. We hope to see him start tomorrow.

Full results of Stage One can be found on ProCyclingStats, of course, as always HERE #WhereElse

27 April: It is Team Presentation day, and The organisers put on a big show in the centre of Parakou to announce all the teams. So the start-list is now official, and we have 136 riders have been signed on from 14 teams.

These are, at the UCI Continental level: Agadir Vélo Propulsion*, 7Eleven Cliqq Roadbike Philippines and Universe Cycling Team. At the National Team level: Bénin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Nigeria and Togo. Finally, at the Club level: SNH Vélo Club, Team Born’Heures, Team Baobab World Cola, and Team Tshenolo Pro Cycling,

*Agadir Vélo Propulsion are a new Continental Team out of Africa, registered in Morocco. They are currently ranked #3 of the 5 African Continental teams, behind Madar Pro Cycling (Morocco) and the Sidi Ali – Unlock Team, also of Algeria. The latter has been a Continental Team since 2020 so Agadir are coming up fast! Great to see an African pro team doing well, and they have a good squad here.

Some photo highlights of the presentations, including that frankly epic Nigeria kit. It even looks fast!

At 11h00, the President of the Bénin Cycling Federation, and Race Director, Romauld Hazoumé welcomed all the Directeur Sportifs to Bénin, and Parakou in particular, and went through all the UCI race regulations and any special rules for this race in Bénin. The UCI’s Sergio Ciccioni (pictured below) talked through several UCI rules, and also spent time with the drivers of the vehicles to ensure safely and consistency.

A vital part of a UCI race, and one that needs precision and accuracy is the creation of the official start list. Each DS arrives with their personal race license, and those of all their riders. These are presented to the Commissaires who verify each of them on the UCI database (see image below), and agree their participation. When the allotted time for this meeting ends, the start-list, which fuels the race number allocation, the transponder codes, and all the other infrastructure of the race is created and circulated.

The start-list is then sent to folk like ProCyclingStats and other media outlets, for journalists to start writing about the race. It is also used by teams to start thinking about competitors for the GC, the U23 ranking, and the various other jerseys.

One of the vital pieces of race infrastructure which must be done 100% correctly, is the matching of race numbers to transponders. The transponders are unique to each rider, and record their performance in each stage. These must be matched accurately, so a lot of pressure is on this young man’s shoulders.

Once these are all matched up, and double-checked by the organisers, each team’s DS is given an envelope which contains each rider’s bike race number, two for their jersey (and they tell their riders not to cut these as it breaks UCI regulations!), their transponder, and a bunch of zip-ties to hold it all on.

Due to weather and crashes in the races, the Commissaires sometimes issue new race numbers to the teams, which are collected as they attend the Presentation each morning to sign on. The DS is required at this point, if not sooner if possible, to inform the Commissaires of any riders who are unable to start the stage that day, so the start-list can be updated. And they MUST give the transponder back immediately also!

There are so many rules and processes for a team DS before the race, which is why we love Adrien Niyonshuti (DS and National Team Head Coach for Team Bénin) – pictured below – as he personally verifies all the above, and ensures his team are fully compliant with the rules.

And finally, the stage preview for Stage One: Its a 119km route from Nikki in the north east of the country, which heads due west and then due south to finish on a, most likely, sprint section back here in Parakou. There are two Intermediate Sprints in the race so expect the Bénin and other African teams to start the race pretty ferociously to ensure they get at least one jersey by the end of the stage.

The profile of the stage is below, Most notable is a right hand turn on a roundabout less than 200m from the end of the stage so it is going to be all about who can hit that turn at speed and carry their momentum through to the finish.

26 April: Today was a pretty hard day, with a seven hour transfer from Cotonou on the South Coast, to Parakou, around 600km+ north. The race convoy has to travel together for security reasons so it was a far old journey, with several stops. One of our stops was at an old school Hotel de Ville for a small town, and the building looked like something from the Thunderbirds TV show! The 120+ riders lounging about on the steps probably made it the most busy it had been in a long time.

The convoy is over 100 vehicles strong, and a mix of cars, vans, lorries, buses, mini-buses, pick-up trucks and more, Our favourite was this epic van from one of the sponsors, with music blaring. A real party bus!

On arrival, a bunch of teams got their bikes together and went out to spin their legs after the long journey, including the French and British riders on Team Born’Heures.

25 April: As more and more teams arrive from the airport, and unload hundreds of bags and bike boxes, the mechanics get to work! The conditions are challenging, with the temperatures hitting 35C+ and humidity into the 80s, however the mechanics are pros and start building their riders’ bikes, checking them over, and fixing all issues caused in transit. Many teams then went out on brief training riders to make sure all is in order.

The ‘horse-trading’ of all pre-bike race paddocks has begun, with teams seeking hard to find items like extra nutrition, tyre sealant, and even a helmet for a rider who had forgotten theirs (truly one of the key CARDINAL sins in bike racing – we won’t name them…)

The other wonderful moment on the eve of a bike race is when old team-mates who have not seen each other for a long time are reunited! Today was a special one, as mentioned in the blog below, as the evergreen Adrien Niyonshuti (Head Coach of Benin) got to see his long-term friend and colleague Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (racing for the Tshenolo Pro Cycling Team from South Africa) again. It was wonderful to see the years roll back as these guys talked of World Tour races gone by…

When reminded by these moments, we always take a minute to pay tribute to that period of African pioneering in the top level of the sport, spear-headed by the MTN-Qhubeka (and later Dimension Data) teams, run by the tenacious Doug Ryder.

Nearly 30 riders from across Africa rode for Doug’s teams between 2008 and 2021, quite simply forcing the pro peloton to accept Africans, and laying the ground for riders like Biniam Girmay, Natnael Tesfatsion and Henok Mulubrhan to be ever-present in the Grand Tours as the new generation.

Back to events in Cotonou, our race favourites (sorry!) Team Bénin arrived at the race HQ hotel this afternoon in their team mini-van, it was quite a sight! Having snuck onto the Team UAE Emirates bus in Mallorca a few months ago and seen the individual seating and luxury that Tadej and others enjoy, Bénin are keeping it real!

The keen-eyed among you will spot some awesome new Scott Sports road bikes on the roof, they come thanks to our help and assistance from the UCI’s World Cycling Centre in Switzerland.

In addition to 16 road bikes coming off the roof and inside, this little van amazingly then gave up: a dozen pairs of wheels, 14 rider suitcases, two massage tables and a soigneur, and six, yes six, riders! Absolute legendary packing skills from these guys…

24 April: Preparations for the Tour du Bénin began today in earnest.

We saw the arrival of Team Cameroon this morning, alongside Team Born’Heures, Universe Cycling Team, Team Nigeria. The Tshenolo Pro Cycling Team from South Africa arrived later in the evening. The latter boasting ex-World Tour rider Reinardt Janse van Rensburg on their roster. This will make for a happy reunion with Adrien Niyonshuti, the Bénin National Team head coach, as they raced together for several years on the Team Dimension Data, at the World Tour level.

Alongside the Tour du Bénin, Adrien’s national team are also preparing for the African Continental Track Championships in a few weeks in Egypt, so a group of female and male riders (Exodus Saïzonou pictured below) were out practicing their track skills today, on the circuit around the iconic ‘Stade Charles de Gaulle’ in Porto Novo.

The pressure is on the host nation, and the Benin National Cycling team house was a hive of activity today, with bikes being serviced, new parts being fitted, equipment being checked, and race kit being handed out to the Men’s ‘A’ and ‘B’ team riders, as well as the women ahead of the GP on Saturday.

Earlier in the day, the well-known journalist Eric Falaizeau and a colleague from Cavousplay Productions, gave a detailed presentation of the nuances of professional bike racing to a dozen or so prominent news and sports journalists from Bénin to ensure they report on the event accurately.

23 April: Our team arrived into Cotonou late in the evening and settled into accommodation. The roadbook was circulated earlier so we had time to go through this and familiarise ourselves with the race.

The six stage UCI 2.2 ME Tour du Bénin starts on Monday 28 April and runs through to Saturday 3 May, with a 25km Team Time Trial (TTT) taking place on Stage Three (30 April). The men will then race the – newly promoted to 2.1 – 107km Grand Prix de Cotonou on Sunday 4 May…

…and for the women, for the first time, on Saturday 3 May, after the men’s stage finishes, the debut women’s 54km Grand Prix International Des Amazones will take place, giving many the female riders an equal chance to the men to get time racing in front of the big expected crowds!

We will also be sharing content in real time across our social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, BlueSky, LinkedIn) so please do give these a follow, as well as more in-depth articles and interviews with key riders, team management, UCI officials and many more present at this incredible race.