Jock Boyer
Team Africa Rising
It will happen in our lifetime. We will see a black African winner of the Tour de France.
It’s only when you’re involved in developing African cycling that you understand what kind of achievement that will be.
It’s only when you’re involved in developing African cyclists that you understand how hard it is for an African to make it to the Tour de France, let alone win.
To start with, the gap between leaving Africa and going to Europe is too big. You must start at the grassroots level. We need more countries engaged in getting young riders on bikes, but the grassroots level is a very difficult task.
Let me paint a picture of some of the difficulties we’ve faced, then I will explain why the successes make them worth it.
When we first got to Rwanda, we were told you are smarter than us because you’re white. I was like “no, we’re not smarter, we’ve just had access to education.” Then everyone started understanding what we were trying to say and do when a few of the riders had kids and we sent those kids to good schools.
Rafiki’s kid Jonathan is the first kid in his family to go to school. He can do interplanetary stuff that I don’t get. He is so smart. At six years old, he would be at the centre with the riders and be our interpreter for anyone who didn’t speak English or French. Being smart has nothing to do with the colour of skin and this message started getting through to the community.
Another difficulty is visas. We just got some visas for some of the riders going to Austria. The process took three months. We got the visas yesterday and it says single entry. They didn’t check multiple entry on the application form.
Something as small as that can have such big ramifications. Years ago, when the Commonwealth Games were in Scotland, we had two riders – Valens and Jean Bosco at the UCI Centre in Switzerland. There was a glitch on Bosco’s visa, it was delayed. Eventually the visa came through on the same day as his flight. On the way back from Scotland, they realised his visa was single entry and detained him in Amsterdam and wouldn’t allow him back to Switzerland.
I started making calls and I got the number of head of immigration at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. I start talking to him and he says, “Are you Jonathan Boyer, the cyclist who raced in Holland and the Tour de France?” So, I say yes. He says, “Oh my goodness, I followed your career when you were racing against Hennie Kuiper…I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll give him a one-way visa to Switzerland and he can sort everything out there.”
So, what keeps us going?
It’s going to our riders houses and seeing what cycling has done for them. It’s gotten water to their houses. They’ve got concrete floors. They’ve got electricity. It’s seeing how their families look at them.
Nathan Byukusenge was a taxi driver when we met him. That’s what he would have done for the rest of his life. Just surviving. Going to the Olympic Games changed his life.
He is the head junior and women’s coach in Rwanda. He has a house, he has a kid, and now he is preparing the next generation to achieve even greater things than he has done.
He grows all the healthy food he learnt to eat during his cycling career right in his garden.
One of our coaches, the former professional cyclist with BMC, Scott Nydam just started a similar program to Team Rwanda in America. Because of his inspiration with us, he started the program in one of the American Indian reservations in New Mexico.
Nathan and Rafiki went to one of the reservations in New Mexico and were there to inspire the kids because you’re looking at two peoples who both suffered a genocide. The Rwandans have access to the American Indians because they’ve lived similar stories.
It’s a remarkable 360 degree turn where you’ve had Americans come to Africa to inspire, then Africans going to America to mentor them in return. We could not have made up this script.
We’ve learnt a few things over the years. We must open the doors and the athletes must embrace the vision. We give them the opportunities and mentors like Nathan and Adrien Niyonshuti inspire in ways that we can’t.
When I started I didn’t set out to change thousands of lives. I set out to change one. I thought, if I can change one life, it will have been worth it. That one life, Adrien, has given inspiration to thousands of people.
Imagine the kind of inspiration a black African winner of the Tour de France will give to millions.
All photos: Skyler Bishop
