Chronicle Editor
Simba Jemwa, Sports Correspondent
TWO riders from top cycling club, Unimills-Hokoyo Cycling Club, will be travelling to Abuja, Nigeria, next month for an International Cycling Union (UCI) Level 2 coaching course and the Confederation of African Cycling (CAC) All-African Championships.
Club captain Nkulumo Dube will attend the coaching course while national Under-23 champion Lizwilenkosi Gerald Sibanda will compete in the Confederation of African Cycling (CAC) All-African Championships from July 14-17.
The All-African Championships are for track cyclists or riders that compete on specially built banked tracks or velodromes using purpose-designed track bicycles.
Sibanda is in Johannesburg after spending time at the UCI High Performance Centre in Paarl, Western Cape, South Africa.
He specialised in track cycling during his time at the high-performance centre, the second time he has been invited to the centre after a month-long road racing training camp in February. Unimills-Hokoyo team principal, Davis Muhambi, said: “Gerald is still in South Africa where he has been at the UCI High-Performance Centre since 4 May. He was part of a crop of riders receiving training in track racing and after receiving his performance report from the high-performance centre, we decided that he should participate in the All-African Championships, which are specifically for track racing.”
Muhambi said Gerald is specialising in track cycling where they ride in a Velodrome.
“This type of racing is where they go round and round at high speed. So, the link between that and road cycling is that track racing is your fast paced sort of cycling. It’s like doing a 100m race, while road racing is like running a marathon,” he said.
Muhambi said there are certain aspects of that particular training that help an individual with road racing. “There’s mutual benefit or a symbiotic relationship between track and road racing like resistance, cardio as well as adding to a rider’s sprint abilities. Gerald has been doing that and it ended on 6 June.”
Muhambi said Gerald’s continued invitations to UCI training camps and the club’s generally unrivalled dominance on the local scene is a sure sign that his company’ efforts to empower young cyclists is beginning to pay off. – @RealSimbaJemwa
Online Reporter