october-2018

42 / PEOPLE / Cycling
PEOPLE / 43
“My dream is to
race a big race like
the Giro d’Italia”
Kenyan Riders Downunder
“I hope my story can
inspire some women
in Africa”
Getty Images
Personal best: 1st,
Stage 3, 2018 Sharjah
Tour
Salim
Kipkemboi
Born
30 November, 1998
Hometown
Eldoret, Kenya
Team
Bike Aid
Greatest achievements
4th overall, 2018 Sharjah Tour; 16th, 2018
African Continental Championships – Road
Race; 39th, 2018 Commonwealth Games –
Road Race; 7th overall, 2017 Tour Meles
Zenawi for Green Development
ITEN MIGHT BE the spiritual home of running and the
training ground of countless Kenyan distance champions, but a
project exists to take the native athletic talent and turn them into
cycling’s Grand Tour winners of the future.
Instrumental in identifying and developing that potential is
Australian Simon Blake, a coach at the Kenyan Riders Downunder
training camp 2,400-m high in the Rift Valley. “If you go with the
school of thought that says that Kenyan athletes have a genetic
advantage, most of the traits that would be beneficial to running
would also be beneficial in endurance cycling,” he explains.
Blake is part of a programme run in partnership with
German non-profit and UCI Continental team Bike Aid. One
of that partnership’s fastest-rising stars is Salim Kipkemboi (19),
who knows what success looks like despite his tender years. He
comes from the same tribe as current Olympic 5,000-m champion
Vivian Cheruiyot, and last year lined up for the Tour of the Alps, a
race won by current Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas.
His aim is to use the shared physiological traits of his compatriot
to emulate the Welshman’s Grand Tour glory.
Kipkemboi was transporting firewood on his bike when he
first joined the programme. After a four-year apprenticeship, he’s
now a pro rider whose most notable results to date are his queenstage
win and subsequent fourth-place overall finish in February’s
Sharjah Tour in the UAE, where he also won the jersey for the best
young rider. This year, he also finished 39th in the Commonwealth
Games road race on Australia’s Gold Coast; lined up alongside
development teams from the pro peloton – including Sunweb and
Team Dimension Data – at Le Tour de Savoie Mont Blanc; and
raced at the two-week Tour of Qinghai Lake in China.
“My dream is to race a big race like the Giro d’Italia or go to
the Tour de France,” says Kipkemboi during a CNN Inside Africa
programme. Blake believes that it’s possible.
MAURITIAN RIDER Aurelie Halbwachs (32) represented
her country for the first time at the African Cycling Championships
in 2006, winning gold in the individual time trial. “I was so
proud to be on the top step for my first time... standing under the
national colours of Mauritius as the flags were raised and our
anthem played,” she says in a Team Africa Rising article. “The
South African women were not really happy as they were the
only ones dominating road racing in Africa at the time!” This
race would set the tone for much of her medal-laden career.
Halbwachs is easily her country’s most successful, most versatile
rider, having represented the island nation twice on the biggest
stage: in the road race at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. She
has also ridden for Mauritius three times at the Commonwealth
Games: in 2010, 2014 and again in Australia this year, where she
came in 12th in the individual time trial, but suffered a mechanical
problem in the road race, which forced her to withdraw.
Halbwachs has been named her country’s sportswoman of the
year four times, but had to wait until last year to stand on the top
of the podium at the African Continental Championships, 11
years after she first did so. This time, she achieved road race and
time trial gold. Arguably a greater achievement, however, was her
bronze medal at the championships while almost three-months
pregnant in 2015.
Halbwachs is not only a versatile rider on the road; her
talents extend to more rugged terrain, as she has proved with a
silver and a bronze medal at the CAC Mountain Bike African
Championships. If she has made it look easy, Halbwachs’ journey
to this point has been anything but. “I had to battle hard to find
sponsors for my travel expenses many times and it’s unfortunate…
I hope my story can inspire some women in Africa.”
Personal best: 1st, 2017 African
Continental Championships Road
Race and Time Trial
Aurelie
Halbwachs
Born
24 August, 1986
Hometown
Curepipe, Mauritius
Greatest achievements
1st, 2006 African Continental
Championships – Time Trial; 2nd, 2010
African Continental Championships –
Time Trial; 2nd, 2013 CAC Mountain Bike
African Championships