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Africa’s first hosting of the road world championships should be a moment of celebration for cycling and the continent but Rwanda instead finds itself the backdrop to a sport mired in infighting and controversy.
The Vuelta a España ended on Sunday after three weeks of racing characterised by mass pro-Palestinian demonstrations against the presence of the Israel-Premier Tech team.
The denouement of all that chaos for race winner Jonas Vingegaard, runner-up João Almeida and third-placed finisher Tom Pidcock was cheap champagne and a makeshift podium in a hotel car park.
The heated debate over sportswashing in cycling that spilled over into violent protest in Spain has now moved from Madrid to Kigali, where Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, has long been criticised for what human rights groups describe as an authoritarian and undemocratic regime.
However, David Lappartient, the UCI president, maintains that staging the sport’s blue riband championships in Rwanda, more than 30 years after the 1994 genocide, is an inspirational “message of hope”. This is despite the country’s record on human rights, as highlighted by Amnesty International’s reports of “enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, excessive use of force, unfair trials and restrictions on the right to freedom of expression”.
Since announcing Rwanda as host for the 2025 world championships, Lappartient has been dismissive of those criticising Kagame’s regime. “In all the countries in the world, you can find some points where they can be better, but when I see where Rwanda was, and where it is now, it’s great,” Lappartient said.
“We are always careful about human rights because it’s in our DNA as an international federation to keep in mind the values of the Olympic movement, of peace, respect and human rights.”
Meanwhile, the proposed boycott of the Israel-Premier Tech team continues to gather pace with both Barcelona, venue for the Grand Départ of the 2026 Tour de France, and the Canary Islands, location of the finale of next year’s Vuelta, refusing to accept the presence of the team.
Against the backdrop of the spiralling debate, which has now set the UCI against the Spanish government, the measured and precise Lappartient finds himself in the eye of a storm over sport and politics.
There are those close to the UCI who feel that a man more at home pondering handlebar width and aerodynamic sock length, and who garnered only four votes at the recent IOC presidency elections, may now be a little out of his depth.
There is provision in the UCI rules to suspend the licence of a UCI World Tour team to “protect the image” of the World Tour.
However, complications may arise in the debate over the Israel-Premier Tech team’s status as it is not currently a World Tour team. However, neither was the Russian-registered Gazprom-RusVelo team that was banned from competition following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
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This week, the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said: “Using sport to ‘whitewash’ a genocide, like the one being committed in Gaza, is a political position that contravenes the Olympic Charter and the most basic values of sport.”
There is a limited British presence in Rwanda – there are no riders entered in the women’s road race or men’s elite time trial – and the noise around the racing is unlikely to disturb the focus of the pragmatic Pidcock, whose move from Ineos Grenadiers to the lesser Q36.5 team has now been fully vindicated.
Fresh from his breakthrough podium performance in the Vuelta, Pidcock will start among the favourites in the men’s road race on 28 September, in which the Tour de France champion, Tadej Pogacar, will defend the world title he won in Zurich a year ago.
Pidcock will be joined in the British lineup for the men’s road race by Oscar Onley, who finished fourth in this year’s Tour de France, and who is rumoured to be a transfer target for Ineos Grenadiers.
Pogacar, who returned from a post-Tour sabbatical in flying form, will be backed by a Slovenian team dedicated to his cause and is widely expected to claim his second world title, particularly in the absence of the Vuelta winner, Vingegaard.
Thirteen world titles will be decided in the week-long championships. The Skipton-born teenager Cat Ferguson, a double gold medallist as a junior in 2024, is among the favourites to claim a world champion’s rainbow jersey when she competes in the women’s under-23 road race.
