Singaporean puts Kenya’s cyclists on the road

[andydude]

http://www.bdlive.co.za/sport/othersport/2012/10/02/singaporean-puts-kenyas-cyclists-on-the-road

 

Singaporean puts Kenya’s cyclists on the road

 

FASCINATED by the notion of turning the most gifted long-distance runners into kings of the saddle, Nicolas Leong packed up his life in Singapore and moved to Kenya’s Rift Valley.

 

It mattered little to him that he knew nothing about the world of professional cycling, and barely more about the nation he was moving to. The dream tantalised him until finally he stepped on a plane. Now, six years on, he says the structure is in place for a generation of champions to flourish.

 

"It was just an idea that wouldn’t go away," Leong told Reuters as he reflected on a step some would call foolhardy and others courageous. "All these Kenyans were winning marathons all over the world (and) I thought it would be really good if you gave them a bike, that was essentially the idea.

 

"They have more dominance in the marathon than anybody has dominated any other sport. The Brazilians are not as dominant in football as the Kenyans are at running the marathon," he said.

 

Leong was, and remains, convinced the country synonymous with world-class runners will produce the first black team to compete in the Tour de France.

 

With Kenya’s long history of producing elite distance runners with stamina the envy of the world, Leong felt it could spawn cyclists with the skills to suit the gruelling demands of that sport.

 

Initially, he wrote to many of the cycling sponsors and teams in the Tour de France, the toughest bike race of them all, with his idea but was mostly ignored before deciding to just do it himself and prove them wrong.

 

Leong was working in his homeland as a photographer in 2006 when he watched Amos Matui win the Singapore marathon for the second consecutive year. Ignoring the rejection letters, Leong confidently went up to Matui and explained his idea before telling the Kenyan he would follow him home that evening to start work on his dream.

Any background in cycling? "None." A link to Kenya? "None. But there was a bit of a plan."

 

The strategy involved finding a cyclist in Iten — the tiny village that is the centre for the production line of Kenyan runners — and demonstrating what raw talent there was in the country to would-be sponsors.

 

"I thought give this guy a bike and he will train and ride up this mountain, L’Alpe d’Huez, which is really famous and ridden in the Tour de France," Leong said.

 

"Lance Armstrong did 37 minutes up this mountain and I thought if we could get a relatively untrained Kenyan to train for a couple of months and you took him there, what time would he do? So the guy did 42 minutes.

 

"Because of that we got somebody interested and investing, an angel investor, who is now my partner and so we started this company," he said.

 

The company is called Kenyan Riders and now has 26 people on the payroll, with one Irish and two Australian coaches supporting 14 cyclists entering events around the world.

 

They compete in amateur global races and finished a credible second in the taxing 70-team Haute Route in France this year where Leong said the look of his team of riders attracted as much attention as their abilities.

 

"Everywhere we turned up we were the only black people on bicycles. People who have been watching cycling for 10, 15, 20, 50 years, they have never seen a black guy on a bicycle, especially on the road."

[urbanroyal]

Kewl ...but is good genes enough...

Edited October 2, 2012 by urbanroyal

[Decapod_Crew]

"Lance Armstrong did 37 minutes up this mountain and I thought if we could get a relatively untrained Kenyan to train for a couple of months and you took him there, what time would he do? So the guy did 42 minutes....