the World Cycling Centre, a launching pad for riders from emerging countries

1er May, Christopher Froome had “the impression of having traveled back in time”. Fifteen years back, when the British cyclist did not yet have four Tours de France (2013, 2015 to 2017), two Tours of Spain (2011 and 2017) and a Tour of Italy (2018) to his credit and that he was driving for Kenya, his native country. On that day, the ramp for the time trial of the Tour de Romandie, in Switzerland, had been installed in the middle of a small road in the town of Aigle, on the way to the World Cycling Center (CMC), where “Froomey” interned for five months, in 2007.

Sunday July 10, the wine town of the Vaud Pre-Alps welcomes the start of the 9e stage of the Tour de France, and the Colombian Daniel Felipe Martinez could experience the same spatio-temporal phenomenon. The Ineos-Grenadiers rider, too, made his debut within the team of this structure of the International Cycling Union (UCI), whose objective is to train talents from emerging or developing countries. .

“Cycling is still very Eurocentricargues the Canadian Jacques Landry, interim president of the CMC. Our objective is to be able to extend it to other nations which have the potential, the will and the passion to develop this sport but do not necessarily have the financial means to do so. »

The Girmay phenomenon

Since its creation in 2002, the center has trained 1,347 athletes from 47 countries in the various disciplines of cycling: road, track, BMX and mountain biking. This season, one of its former residents has become the darling of the peloton: the Eritrean Biniam Girmay, 22, the first African to win one of the renowned spring events – the classic Ghent-Wevelgem, on March 27. A few weeks later, he confirmed in Italy, on the roads of the Giro, with a victory in the 10e stage.

Never had a black African runner raised his arms in a three-week race, and Valerio Piva, his sports director with the Belgian formation Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux, was delighted with the arrival of“a new continent at the pinnacle of cycling”.

Read the analysis: A Tour de France peloton deprived of many distinctive national jerseys

Irony of history: the men’s road team from the CMC has been stopped since the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has affected the structure’s income. Gold “all the riders who are today in the World Tour [la première division du cyclisme sur route]apart from South Africans, have gone through this program,” sums up one of them, Tsgabu Grmay, a trainee at Aigle in 2011.

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