South Africa Finishes Tour de France on a High
South Africa finished the Tour de France (TDF) yesterday on a high. It has been an incredibly emotional and successful three weeks for Team MTN Qhubeka in this, their debut in the legendary cycling event. Team member – Edvald Boasson Hagen – sprinted to a brilliant fourth place on the Champs Elysees in Paris in the final stage […]
South Africa finished the Tour de France (TDF) yesterday on a high. It has been an incredibly emotional and successful three weeks for Team MTN Qhubeka in this, their debut in the legendary cycling event.
Team member – Edvald Boasson Hagen – sprinted to a brilliant fourth place on the Champs Elysees in Paris in the final stage yesterday. And overall TDF Grande Boucle winner Chris Froome (30), from UK Team Sky (who claimed his second TDF victory) also has a South African connection…having been brought up in South Africa after being born in Kenya.
The South African-based nine-man MTN-Qhubeka Cycling Team – which is Africa’s first ever Union Cycliste International (UCI) registered Professional Continental cycling team – became the first African professional cycling team to participate in the Tour de France’s 112-year history.
The magic was there from the start with MTN Qhubeka’s cyclist Daniel Teklehiminot, of Eritrea, becoming the first African to wear the Tour’s King of the Mountains polka-dot jersey. And on Nelson Mandela Day, 18 July, we won Stage 14 of the Tour de France thanks to Steve Cummings.
Team MTN rider Tyler Farrar, from America, said the Tour has been a dream come true for Africa. “We had really big aspirations coming into the Tour, we set big goals for ourselves and we managed to meet every one of them so I think we really couldn’t have asked for any more out of the Tour. We won a stage, we wore a leader’s jersey, we flew the flag for the Qhubeka foundation for 21 days and that is a dream come true.”
Yesterday Team MTN Qhubeka posted the following message for all fans: “What an emotional time for our team right now…we just want to say thank you. Thank you so much for supporting our team and thank you for supporting our #BicyclesChangeLives campaign during #TdF2015.
“It has been a dream 3 weeks and we couldn’t have done it without each and everyone of you!”
Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung described it on their website as “an incredible end to a perfect debut”.
The Team said: “As the riders set off for Paris earlier today, it would be an incredible day of reflecting back on what was a dream 3 weeks for our African team. From the moment Daniel Teklehaimanot made history by getting the 102nd Tour de France underway in the Eritrean national jersey, we couldn’t have written a more perfect script for what was to come.
“To ride away from the Tour de France after having Daniel spend 4 days in the Polka Dot jersey, a Mandela Day stage win courtesy of Steve Cummings, 14 stage top 10 results including 7 of them being top 5 placing’s, finishing 5th in the overall team competition and a 13th on the General Classification with Serge Pauwels ensured we exceeded all of our own expectations.”
The success of the South African team has also brought much needed exposure to their ongoing #BicyclesChangeLives campaign. (See link below.)
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