The Tour de France is set to have a team from Africa for the first time this year.
Johannesburg-based MTN-Qhubeka was one of five wildcards picked to participate in the 102nd edition of cycling’s top race that starts on July 4, according to a statement by race organizer Amaury Sport Organisation.
Founded in 2007, the team seeks to give African riders a path into professional cycling.
The team features American Tyler Farrar, Theo Bos of the Netherlands and Norwegian Edvald Boasson Hagen alongside riders including Daniel Teklehaimanot, an Eritrean who was the first black African to complete a Grand Tour when he finished the 2012 Vuelta a Espana.
About half the roster is from Europe and the US, while the other half is from African nations including Rwanda, Algeria and South Africa.
“I have been waiting my whole life for this news,” MTN-Qhubeka team principal Douglas Ryder said in a statement on the team’s Web site. “We will not only ride in the Tour, we will compete and we will have the support of the whole continent behind us.”
MTN Group Ltd, Africa’s largest wireless operator, is the team’s main sponsor and Qhubeka is a charity that hands out bicycles in return for community and environmental work or academic results, the statement said.
Chris Froome, born to British parents in Kenya and raised in South Africa, became the first African-raised winner of the Tour de France in 2013 with Team Sky.
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