History was made when Rwanda earned the vote of confidence from the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) to host the 2025 Road World Championship, becoming the first African nation to host the world’s most prestigious cycling event since its inception in 1921. The World Cycling governing body confirmed Rwanda as the host of the 2025 tournament in an official announcement held on Friday, September 24, in Flanders, Leuven, Belgium. The country hosted the 2021 edition of the tournament which concluded on Sunday. Sports Minister Aurore Mimosa Munyangaju and Rwanda’s cycling governing body’s boss Abdullah Murenzi were in attendance at the official announcing ceremony. In an exclusive interview, Murenzi took Times Sport through Rwanda’s journey to winning the bid, what it means for the country and the cycling game and the way forward. How can you describe Rwanda’s journey to being selected to host the 2025 Road World Championship? The journey was not easy at all. It required high-level commitment and regular follow-ups given the fact that we were in a race with an opponent who we didn’t feel would give us time to relax. It was a journey during which each of the concerned stakeholders in Rwandan cycling, from the Ministry and federation to our partners, played their part. Submitting the bid wasn’t enough for us to win it. We had to prepare in all aspects and, thanks to everyone’s commitment and efforts, we achieved what we started. What does becoming the first African nation to host such a big cycling event mean for Rwanda? Apart from the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup, the Road World Championship is ranked among the world’s top five sporting events. So hosting such an event in the ranks of world’s biggest sporting events is a golden achievement for Rwanda. It shows the trust that the global sports community has for Rwanda in organizing big international events. What do you attribute to Rwanda’s achievement to get hosting rights for the Road World Championships? It was obvious and it was just a matter of time to get the hosting rights for the 2025 Road World Championships because the bid that we submitted was too difficult to turn down. We were well ahead of Morocco in so many aspects. I have a feeling that Rwanda has, from the beginning, shown so much interest in hosting the tournament and the way the government-backed our bid was crucial in this journey. From the Ministry of Sports to President Kagame who is always supportive to sport development, we had the support we needed to achieve this milestone. The way Tour du Rwanda’s level of performance has improved on the continental level in recent years also had an indirect contribution to winning the vote of confidence from UCI to host such a big and international cycling event. What value will this add to Rwandan cycling? Trusting Rwanda and handing the tournament to us did not come by accident. There were so many factors that convinced UCI to approve our bid because Rwanda is not new in successfully hosting international sporting events. We now need to uphold their trust and prove that they weren’t wrong while choosing us and for others to open doors for us to host more big sporting events. And technically, we are planning to do so many activities for the development of the cycling game on a long-term basis not just in line with preparing a team that will contest in the 2025 tournament but a team that can compete for the next ten years. We are not going to prepare a team just to participate. It must be a team of cyclists that we feel will be competing against the best riders expected in the tournament. Rwandan cyclists have not been quite impressive in the Road World Championships and Tour du Rwanda recently. What do you have in store for Rwandans to shine at the 2025 edition? We are going to invest in young riders so we prepare them into future champions at big international cycling events. As part of the initiative, we now have 11 young riders training from France and none among them is over 23 years of age. If we keep doing regular follow up on them, we hope they will be at their prime time to shine and represent their country well at the 2025 Road World Championship. We also want to put more effort into ensuring that we produce competent coaches so they can improve their coaching performances. No Rwandan coach holds a professional license in cycling so far. We want to put more effort into helping them upgrade their license. We are aware that it’s a big issue but we are going to look at how our homegrown coaches get advanced coaching skills for the sake of a better future of Rwandan cycling. What next after Rwanda secured the hosting right for the 2025 Road World Championships? The journey to organize a smooth tournament starts now. While in Belgium, we started discussions with different partners who we hope will help us in smoothly organizing the 2025 Road World Championships. We are soon signing a partnership deal with the Belgian Cycling Federation under which they will, from January next year, help us with technical support in organizing the event. We are also in talks with Ridley factory as we look to see how they can bring a manufacturing plant in Rwanda so we can easily get high-standard bikes for our riders. On the technical part of our homegrown cyclists, we are going to work with each cycling team in our talent detection exercise. We are also going to shift our efforts on capacity building of our coaches so they can help us in the talent development of young cyclists.
