Cycling World Championships Legacy
Date: 14 October 2025
With the Road World Cycling Championships now concluded in Kigali – the first Worlds to take place in Africa – it is vital that the legacy and impact of this event amplifies the continuing growth of road cycling on the continent, and, as always, the non-profit Team Africa Rising (TAR) is leading this next chapter in African cycling.
With the cost of international travel and the accompanying challenge of securing travel visas, many young African cyclists still struggle to realise their dream of getting a chance at professional road racing, a sport still very much centered in Europe.
In 2019, with the global COVID-19 pandemic taking effect worldwide, something curious happened. The cycling playing field suddenly levelled. No one could travel. The team at Masaka Cycling Club in Uganda saw an opportunity, as co-founder Ross Burrage explains:
“Virtual racing has been a game changer for us. Zwift has supported our program for over five years. Our coaches can fast-track the knowledge transfer through the platform. Cadence, efficiency, timing, positioning, preparation, training and team ethos can be learnt and transferred to the road, and it is safe. Our roads can become dangerous. Masaka’s presence in the Top 30 virtual teams globally is also reward for effort for riders. We have become a fascination to the global cycling community because of virtual racing.”
This adoption of virtual training and racing began to spread, and with the help of Team Africa Rising and its connections with Zwift and Wahoo, many e-trainers and heart rate monitors began arriving across the continent, and flags from across Africa began appearing frequently on Zwift races.
TAR worked with other early adopters included the Lunsar Cycling Team in Sierra Leone and the National Cycling Federation of Benin. In early 2025, despite the ongoing conflict in that region at the time, TAR helped the Goma Cycling Club in DR Congo establish its first online training capability. TAR CEO Kimberly Coats explains:
“Virtual training and racing have led to the democratization of the sport on the African continent. African cyclists can assess their strength and performance against each other and the best in the world. Our goal is to have riders training and racing in all 54 countries on the continent and to launch the first-ever African e-sport Continental Championships.”
Many of the riders who performed well for Africa at the recent UCI Cycling World Championships in September 2025 and the most recent edition of the African Continental Championships are frequent Zwift users.
Because of this success, TAR led discussions before and during the World Championships to expand and grow the use of e-training and virtual racing as a major legacy project following this historic cycling event for the continent.
Moving forward, the online elements of the clubs using Zwift, as well as several additional centers in the pipeline, will be grouped under the ‘Virtual Performance Center’ (VPC) brand.
In the last week, a dozen e-trainers have arrived at the Java-Inovotec (UCI Continental Team)’s house in Kigali (Rwanda) and are currently being set up with Team Africa Rising’s guidance. Java-Inovotec’s Team Principal Pascal Ndizeye is over-seeing the project and is excited to help the next generation of male and female young riders in Rwanda get to know this vital cycling technology.
In addition, we are excited to announce that TAR will launch new VPCs in Algeria, Zambia, and Ghana - as well as a major equipment refresh in Uganda - before the end of 2025.
Alongside an already strong Zwift user base in South Africa and Namibia, this will ensure that riders from over 10 African nations will now regularly race and train online. TAR will continue to establish more VPCs into the new year with the aim of seeing over 1,000 young male and female cyclists getting online by the time of the next UCI World Championships in September 2026.
This is all made possible by the kindness of Zwift, a long-term partner of TAR. They are providing the e-trainers and licenses for this project, as part of their commitment to the continuing diversity of our sport, its legacy in Africa following the World Champs, and to increase the reach of e-training and racing around the world. Kate Veronneau, the Director of Women’s Strategy at Zwift explains:
“At Zwift, we believe the power of cycling should be accessible to everyone, everywhere. Supporting Team Africa Rising reflects our commitment to growing the sport globally and opening doors for emerging talent. We’re proud to play a role in helping African cyclists gain more opportunities, visibility and connection within the international cycling community.”
The VPC programme has several other exciting aims for 2026, and we expect to see an African racing series emerge, as well as potentially a debut of the virtual Africa Rising Continental Road Cycling Championships.
