Muraho from RWANDA, land of the lakes and a thousand hills!

The African Mountain Bike Champs have long been awaiting us in the tropical hills of Muzanse, Rwanda. This year though wasn’t just any continental championship; it was the qualifying race for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

Being situated in Switzerland this year meant that I would be traveling and arriving in this foreign country alone only to survive two days and nights without the rest of the Namibian Team; I was nervous.

Before I could even set foot in the continent the African experience started. My flight went Zurich-Brussels, Brussels-Kigali (the capital of Rwanda) so I checked my luggage through hoping it would arrive on the other side. Needless to say, I stood at the conveyer belt for quite a while before giving up and walking to the ‘Lost and Found’ office only to hear: “Oh yea, your bag is still in Brussels, you can come fetch it on Monday night”… (It was Saturday night and thoughts of how to survive for two days without my bag were flashing through my head). With much relief I did find my bike bag and knew that at least that was safe.  Thankfully the Rwandan Cycling Federation (with some influence by my organized mother) had a taxi ready to take me to the race location in Muzanse, about two hours away from Kigali.

Awaking the next morning, with no tooth brush, old underwear and a smelly pair of socks I decided to have breakfast and think things through. I managed to track down a number of the Rwandan Cycling centre and like a knight in shining armour Jonathan “Jock” Boyer came to rescue me. Jock, the first American to have ridden the Tour de France in 1981, is a permanent coach in Rwanda and helps grow the program to develop local cyclists. He gave me cycling shoes, clothes and a workshop to assemble my bike as well as offering me lunch and supper in those two days as a lonely Namibian.

The rest of the Namibian team arrived on Monday afternoon. They consisted of 12 people with 7

riders (including me, Heiko Redecker, Xavier Papo, Michael Pretorius, Michelle Voster and the two Juniors Tristan de Lange and Brandon Plaatjies), Hans du Toit (coach, dietician, doctor, physio, masseuse), Mannie Heymans (Mechanic and entertainer), Aidan de Lange (Manager), Annette de Lange (admin) and Johan Foster (Mental coach and supporter). That evening my bag also arrived at the Hotel, I’ve never been so happy to see my socks and underwear…

We spent the rest of the week recce the track that we would race come Sunday. These few days I learnt and saw so much of Rwanda, even though we stayed within a 20km radius of the Hotel. The culture, cuisine, and manner of the locals were so interesting and a drastic opposite to what I have gotten used to in Switzerland. Unlike the Swiss, here people rode or drove according to the situation, not according to the rules. If there was a corner to the left (here they drive on the right), why stay in your lane if you can cut the corner and move onto the opposite lane, it makes sense.

Avocadoes are something that they definitely had enough of. We ended up eating avoe’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner; with porridge, steak or chips. The fruit made sure to remind us we were in the tropical region: Papaya, mango, passion fruit, pineapple and bananas were part of breakfast every morning.

The people ended up being the biggest experience of all. During the first two days that I was alone the staff of the Muhabura Hotel, noticing the absence of company and my team, made a big effort to help me. The English was a little of a challenge to them, but they always approached me with a smile and I couldn’t resist, even though frustrated about the situation, to smile back and try to express the words with motion. On the track the local children were so enthusiastic and excited to see us ride through their villages and partly through their front yard. On the steep climbs all you could hear was a bunch of children running behind you trying to keep up while shouting out “goode moning, goode moning” (that was about it for their English vocabulary). Occasionally you would have an advanced student who would remember to say the whole sentence he learnt in school (“goode morning teacha” and “howe are you?”). I truly had a wonderful experience and the thought will probably stay for ever and pop up every time someone greets me with “good morning”.

The two days before the race Heiko and I enjoyed a motor taxi ride up to the cycling centre for a massage. It was my first time and I enjoyed every meter of it; I might even start something like this in Switzerland.

Come race day I had the warm up of my life. Not necessarily what I did, but the audience we had. I felt like a Pro tour rider warming up before a time trial with the crowd watching my every move. Seconds before the start of my biggest goal this year flashes of lying on the beach in Rio next year went through my mind and I was confident to deliver. My strategy was to go out a little easier than normal, as I’m a fast starter but then need time to recover, and gradually reel in rider after rider. This would also be better mentally as I would be more motivated to catch the next rider, rather than being overtaken by the slow starters later.

The gun went and we were off. I managed to get a good spot behind the Mauritian rider and tried to keep the pace. Heiko was quite a few places ahead of me battling it out with the top South Africans while the other two Namibian elite riders were right next to me.

The criteria for qualifying for the Olympics are that the first two countries over the finish line get a ticket. But now, because South Africa has quite a high world ranking they fall out of the list, so the next two countries over the line would qualify. Our teams goal was thus to be within the first three countries (including RSA). Going up the start hill, which takes you up 100m in altitude and lasts 5min, I was struggling to keep up with riders from the other countries, so I eased off a little. The fact of Muzanse being at 2000m altitude, and maybe lack of fitness, crawled deep into my lungs to start the burning in my rhythmic breathing pattern. There was a distinct sense of déjà vu as riders overtook me, except that this time it wasn’t European professionals, but African riders that probably came to Rwanda to see the country rather than to suffer through 7 laps. This clearly shows how mountain biking in Africa has developed and how the domination of southern Africa is starting to fade.

At that moment I noticed that something had to be wrong. I suffered on, got a few punctures, and was overlapped in my fourth lap. During these four laps I had the worst feeling that I’ve ever experienced on the bike. Unlike in Switzerland where the spectators cheer you on like you are leading the race (even though you’re last), here the locals where laughing at me as I dragged my suffering body position and face expression up the climbs.

It felt like all the ingredients of a cake mixture where ready in a baking tray. The training, funding, support, equipment was all at 100% but the oven didn’t switch on. It was like an Eskom situation in my body as the power failures have been haunting me for the past five weeks. Here in Switzerland I was avoiding the fact, blaming in on mechanicals and the strong competition, but now I figured out that I wasn’t functioning properly (I’m sure South Africans wish that Eskom could figure it out as fast as I).

Now that I was out of the race the fate of Olympic qualification lay in the hands of the other three riders. Sadly Mauritius and Rwanda both had very strong riders that ended up taking the tickets. Our strongest rider, Heiko, came in 10^th, battling it out alone in front between a pack of Rwandans, South Africans and one Mauritian. It was disappointed not to be there to help him out.

The other two categories where Namibia was represented were partly dominated by our juniors and strongly finished by our one Elite lady. Tristan and Brandon took first and second respectively in the juniors while Michelle held on tight to a bronze medal between a very competitive South African Elite women’s field. I could see the Elite men from South Africa enjoying their last African Champs before our juniors join the fight for the title next year.

After the race I had quite a long chat with my coach and we have decided, as we can’t figure out what has been causing the power failures, to take a week off to clear my mind. So this coming Sunday I am travelling to Holland to visit my brother and niece and have decided to leave the bike behind.

From my side, murakoze, and till next time

Martin