Advertisement

Rwanda to host 2025 World Road Cycling Championships

Friday September 24 2021
New Content Item (1)

The 13th edition of the Tour du Rwanda (Tour of Rwanda), 2021. PHOTO | ATHAN TASHOBYA

By Ange Iliza

Rwanda will host the 2025 UCI World Road Cycling Championships, an event that attracts over 5,000 cyclists and 20,000 delegates.

The tournament will be held in Africa for the first time in 2025.

The announcement comes as the 2021 UCI World Road Cycling Championships concludes in Louvain, Belgium.

The 2022 Road World Championships will be held in Wollongong, Australia, with Glasgow and Zurich hosting the event in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

Rwanda had applied to host the tournament in 2019 facing competition from Morocco for the hosting rights. In May this year, UCI president David Lappartient attended the Tour du Rwanda and held talks with officials and President Paul Kagame.

Cycling in Rwanda has been on a rise over the last decade, with Tour du Rwanda becoming the country’s biggest sporting event and the biggest cycling race on the continent, up from the amateur event it was in 2008.

Advertisement

In February 2019, Tour du Rwanda was upgraded from a 2.2 to a 2.1 UCI category race, making it Africa’s second race with 2.1 badge, after Gabon’s La Tropicale Amissa Bongo.

This year, Rwanda hosted the Basketball Africa League (BAL), the Afrobasket 2021 and the recently concluded Africa Volleyball Championship.

Advertisement