When Eritrean cyclist Natnael Berhane crossed the finish line of the Tour of Turkey in May, he made history not only for his country, but for his continent.
Natnael, 22, who is expected to take first place after the winner was disqualified for doping, was the first person from sub-Saharan Africa to win a race of that class.
However, he is only one of several Eritreans in the cycling-mad Horn of Africa state that is making his mark on the sport, showing another side of a nation that makes headlines more for brutal repression than world-class athletes.
Photo: AFP
Eritrea offers ideal training ground for serious cyclists, with its breathtaking, cliff-hugging roads that swoop from the highland capital, Asmara — elevation 2,325m — in a 100km stretch down to the Red Sea.
“When I race in Europe, the aim is to introduce our country to the world,” professional cyclist Meron Russom told reporters, sporting the bright yellow gear of his South African-based MTN Qhubeka team ahead of a training session.
“We are still fighting to push Eritrea to the top in sport, especially cycling,” added the slender 26-year-old, a former winner of the Tour of Eritrea, a race modeled on the more famous Tour de France.
Eritrea’s competitive cyclists have zoomed forward in recent years, boosted by a training center set up in South Africa by the International Cycling Union (UCI) in 2005.
“They’ve never had the opportunity … in trying to move them into the higher arena of cycling, until the UCI set up a satellite training center in South Africa,” UCI president Pat McQuaid said.
The tradition of cycling in Eritrea dates back more than a century, when Italian colonizers introduced the sport.
Though international races were hosted in Eritrea, it was not until the late 1940s that Eritreans were permitted to ride competitively alongside their Italian occupiers.
Today, cycling is an integral part of life as cars compete with bikes — the day-to-day transport for many — on the capital’s roads and the groups of youths who take to the high-altitude routes alongside professional racers each weekend continue to grow.
The sport suffered during the three decades of war that won Eritrea independence from Ethiopia in 1991, cyclist Giovanni Mazzola said.
“Before independence it was bad, because the war continued, the people could not go out,” said Eritrean-born Mazzola, who competed for Ethiopia in the 1960 Rome Olympics.
Today, the country boasts six professional riders who compete internationally and more than 650 cyclists in its national cycling federation.
However, the sport is hampered by lack of funding for equipment and limited local training programs.
“Funding is a problem, it is not enough,” Eritrean Cycling Federation president Asmerom Habte said, sitting in his office next to a handful of cycling trophies.
Asmara helps buy some professional bicycles, while top riders are supported by sponsors, but obtaining travel visas to compete abroad adds another challenge since the hardline regime restricts travel, even for national athletes. This has not been helped by the defection of several national athletes.
Olympic runner Weynay Ghebresilasie defected after the 2012 London Games, in December last year, Eritrea’s soccer team disappeared in Uganda and at least two more cyclists have defected so far this year.
“We have had one or two who have come and disappeared, which doesn’t help the ones who are trying to get in after that,” McQuaid said.
Yet the mood remains optimistic that the sport will continue to grow here.
Many of the country’s professional cyclists, Meron included, prefer to return home to train in the country’s high altitude, temperate weather and varied terrain good for both mountain biking and road racing, which some feel gives Eritreans a competitive edge over other African riders.
National pride is anther push for Meron.
Although Kenyan-born Chris Froome won this year’s Tour de France, he carried a British flag. Meron hopes that one day there will be an African — and specifically an Eritrean — winning that most famous of cycle races.
“Here in Eritrea, everybody knows us, when we pass in the road, they call us by our name, so they give us a big boost,” he said. “That’s why we are still racing and riding, because of our people.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier