Tanzania:Cyclist to train in South Africa for continental championships

Tanzanian cyclist Sophia Hussein has secured a training stint at the World Cycling Center (WCC) in South Africa to prepare for this year’s African Championships.

Tanzania Cycling Association (CHABATA) chairman, Geoffrey Mhagama, said Hussein will head to South Africa next week to prepare for the championship, penned for February 9-13 in Kwazulu Natal.

Mhagama said Hussein, who is the national women cycling champion, secured the opportunity courtesy of Liesbeth Kenies, who was previously based in Dodoma.

He thanked Kenies for the support to Hussein and added that it will help to improve the Tanzanian cyclist’s chances of winning medals in the South Africa event.

“We are in the process of finalizing her visa…hopefully it will be out next week. We thank Kenies for the support to Sophia Hussein,” Mhagama said.

He said the WCC’s South Africa branch provides top of the art training facilities which are good for the development of riders.

“The WCC’s sports and non-sporting facilities offer everything a rider needs to make his or her training programmes a success. The centre regularly hosts programs organised by national cycling federations and its multi-sport facilities welcome elite sportsmen and women in a variety of disciplines,” he said.

The CHABATA official said they will use Hussein’s stay at the centre to negotiate with WCC leaders on the possibility of increasing the number of Tanzanians to train at the centre.

“Currently Tanzania has only one cyclist, Richard Laizer, training at WCC. We will go to South Africa for the African Championships and we will discuss with leaders of the center on the possibility of increasing the number of Tanzanians training at the center,” he said.

“It will be better if they will take one rider every year. We will also try to convince them so they can visit member associations for fact finding mission.”

Mhagama said CHABATA registered 15 cyclists for the South Africa event but the number of riders that will represent the country will depend on availability of money that will meet the cyclists’ participation costs.

“We are gearing toward having a good number of representatives at the championship but it will all depend on the availability of money …if we fail to get the required money, we will send four men and two women” he said.

He said the event will be staged for five days and is expected to attract participants from 25 to 30 African nations.
There will be three days of Time Trial competition, in which a Team Time Trial will take place on the first day, whereas the Individual Time Trial will be held in the following two days.