For a moment, leave the cynicism that any reference to cycling might arouse at the door. These have not been, it is safe to say, glory years for cycling. In scandal after scandal, its reputation has taken a hit.
Never more than these years has it seemed that the sole purpose of professional cycling is commercial; never more has it been more apt that the origins of the greatest race of them all – the Tour de France – lay solely in the desire of a newspaper to boost its circulation.
But for at least one of the 18 teams getting ready to compete at the second Abu Dhabi Tour beginning Thursday, the same cannot be said – not completely, anyway. Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka, for whom Mark Cavendish competes, is the only pro cycling team on the circuit from the African continent.
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The South Africa-registered team has worked its way up the cycling circuit from when it first came into being, in 2007. And its goals stretch far beyond just winning races.
“The theory behind the team was that Africa has produced some of the best endurance runners, so why not cyclists?” said Doug Ryder, the team principal. “That started the dream of developing an African world champion cyclist and taking an African-registered team to succeed at the highest levels in world cycling to showcase the potential of Africa in a sport that Africans historically were not a part of.”
The team partnered with the Qhubeka charity (Qhubeka is an Nguni word that means "to carry on" or "to progress") in 2011. Since then its fortunes – and vision – have grown. A #BicyclesChangeLives campaign this year is close to its target of providing 5,000 bicycles to schoolchildren through the continent.
In the last two years the charity has donated 65,000 cycles to schools in South Africa, not only with hopes of keeping children in school, but in developing more African cycling talent.
Cavendish’s switch to the team at the start of the year has not only helped transform the team profile, it has also changed him. After winning a stage at the Tour de France this year, he said he had been given a new “lease of life”: it had upturned the equation by which he rides.
“It’s given me a cause to ride for rather than just pressure to win. I’m very fortunate to have ridden for the biggest teams in cycling. They were successful years, I had a lot of fun and made a lot of friends. But with the biggest teams and the biggest funds comes a lot of pressure to win.
“Now it’s something more than just winning, more than being a moving billboard. We ride for Qhubeka. It’s about getting 5,000 kids on bikes in Africa. It’s close to every rider’s heart. It could be a spiel but it’s not, it’s 50 per cent of what we do, with results the other 50 per cent.”
This has been a breakthrough year for the team, as more riders have signed on, bringing more wins. Cavendish and Steve Cummings won five stages between them for the team at the Tour de France.
The Norweigan Edvald Boasson Hagen has won important stages through the year, including at the Tour of Qatar and Tour of Oman. Cavendish was an overall winner in Qatar and Cummings the winner of the Tour of Britain.
Perhaps most significant has been the achievement of Daniel Teklehaimanot, the Eritrean who became the first African rider in the history of cycling to wear the polka-dots jersey (king of the mountains) at the Tour de France in 2015 and retained it this year.
The team’s prominence tails in nicely with cycling’s global push, to break out of Europe and into nascent markets of Africa and the Gulf.
“It his hard to think of a race calendar without them” said Ryder, referring to races in the Gulf. “It is these races that help to globalise the sport. As we could see this year, they are races that make for some interesting competition and as such, I guess, they are also a great viewing experience.
“These events create interest and will open the eyes of the locals to a sport they might not know even existed. This is the first step in getting the interest in the sport up and then local participation will come from that and hopefully more pro riders from the Gulf in the not too distant future.”
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