Editor,

RE: "Hadi’s claims are baseless, says Ferwacy president” (The New Times, September 30).

Allow me to point out to Mr. Bayingana that only Janvier Hadi can explain the reasons for his premature retirement. Furthermore, only Mr. Hadi—nobody else—can tell us how he felt and why. All Mr. Bayingana and FERWACY can do is to refute the basis on which Mr. Hadi felt alienated from the Federation and assure us that he was mistaken in feeling unwanted. But they cannot refute his claims of how he felt vis-à-vis the Federation.

Prima facie, it is difficult for a neutral person to believe that a professional and successful sportsperson (one of the few our country can boast of) would just throw in the towel in the prime of age without reason. The administrators of our sports seem to bent on outdoing each other in their race to the bottom.

Mwene Kalinda

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The Olympic qualification is clearly stated that the athlete qualifies the country and not individually. Janvier Hadi was in consideration for the Olympics along with Adrien Niyonshuti and Jean-Bosco Nsengimana. Team Rwanda Cycling had hoped he would do well in Germany with BikeAid and be in a position to be in top condition for the event. Due to his lack of desire to commit to the program in Germany he became increasingly out of shape and unprepared for the Olympics.

The Federation and Team Rwanda Cycling coaches and staff met to discuss the selection and based on Hadi’s fitness level, his attitude and where Niyonshuti was mentally and physically the choice was made to send Niyonshuti, all perfectly within the realm of Olympic selection. Mr. Hadi received a very fair stipend for his performance in 2015.

As was stated by Mr. Bayingana and Hadi’s team manager for BikeAid, Timo Schaffer, he was never mistreated.

Mr. Hadi was never mistreated by Team Rwanda Cycling. When he was considering leaving BikeAid prematurely and breaking his contract, all pending consequences were discussed in depth with him. Even his Eritrean teammates asked him why he was leaving and why he didn’t want to race in Europe.

Team Rwanda staff had been to the team house in Germany and it is a nice, safe and clean home in a beautiful village which has a very large international, greatly African, population.

Hadi’s choice was his choice. He was told due to his age, this could be his last professional opportunity. TRC told him he could not come back to the national team because he was under contract with BikeAid and Minispoc, Ferwacy and TRC are focused on developing junior and U23 riders.

This was all explained to him prior to leaving Germany. In the end, he chose to leave BikeAid and break his contract, just like he chose to leave cycling.

Kimberly Moszyk Coats