2025: Truly a Key Chapter in the African Cycling Story

Words: Jeremy Ford, Communications & Logistics, Team Africa Rising

Photos: Mixed

As widely reported, Africa hosting the annual UCI Cycling World Championships in September 2025 - a key moment for the sport of cycling - as the first time the Worlds have been on African soil in its 105-year history.

Alongside this monumental moment, it was a record year for African cycling in terms of the sheer volume of African men and women who progressed to the professional ranks of the sport.

In 2024, 141 cyclists from Africa raced on World Tour, Pro Continental or Continental teams globally. To give this some international context, the USA, a world away in terms of resources, access to equipment and infrastructure, supplied around half this number of pro racers.

Let us dig a little deeper into the men and women from across Africa flying their flag(s) in professional racing.

UCI Africa Tour – The Nations Rankings

Eritrea leads the way, with three times as many points as the second-placed team (South Africa)! This is a truly sterling effort, and underlines Eritrea’s incredible position as Africa’s leading cycling nation. If you factor in the country’s poor GDP, and relative isolation from external influence, this is a truly incredible testament to the amazing cycling culture across the East African nation. South Africa and Algeria make up the rest of the top three, who are also distanced from the rest.

It is good to see Mauritius’ continued growth based on a strong development programme over the last few years (both Men’s and Women’s cycling) and they sit strongly in fourth, 300 points ahead of Morocco. These five nations are very much the ‘Champions League’ of African professional cycling for the last few years.

In 2025, there were seven professional teams registered on the African continent, all at the UCI Continental level, and we are happy to celebrate the incredible second season of the Madar Pro Cycling Team, who finish as the #1 African team by a long way, fielding a squad of 100% African riders.

The Madar team had a 100% increase in their UCI race days in 2025, a vital element for a Continental team. In addition, they have been racing across Africa and increasingly in Europe and wider afield. The Head of Performance for the team confirmed during the recent African Continental Championships that they already have 120 confirmed road race days on their calendar for 2026 across the world, and are hoping to reach 140. This is an incredible effort in just the second year of the team!

UCI 2025 ‘Africa Tour’ Rankings Review – Men

So, let us look at the key riders behind these numbers. There is no real surprise at the top of the Men’s rankings, with 25yo Biniam Girmay (Eritrea) coming in first, dominating the rankings with the same tally of points as the second to fifth placed riders! Kudos Bini for another year at the top. His results in 2025 were not where he would ideally have liked them to be, finishing #37 in the world compared to his stellar #9 for the 2024 season.

25-year-old Henok Mulubrhan (Eritrea) had a brilliant 2025 as he rises in the world of pro cycling, and he just confirmed a new 2-year contract with the XDS Astana Team. We hope to see his debut at the Vuelta or the Tour de France in 2026.

Natnael Tesfatsion (Eritrea) had a strong year with his new Movistar team, racking up 440 points. We think there is more to come from him in 2026, which is exciting.

Although Eritreans make up half of the top ten, it is great to see riders from Algeria and South Africa in the top ten as well, and a big shout-out to Yacine Hamza (Algeria), who races for Madar Pro Cycling, who has had a great year as this African pro team continues to make a name for itself in Africa, and across Europe. They have now announced their squad on ProCyclingStats for 2026 with seven Algerians and the hire of 23 rising Ethiopian star Bizay Tesfu Redae from Team Amani.

Other riders in the top ten worth a mention are (i) 20yo sprinter Milkias Maekele (Eritrea), who has raced his first pro season in 2025 for Team BIKE AID – one of the most prolific supporters of African riders over the last 15 years! – and has been poached by the INEOS Grenadiers development team for 2026! (ii) Alan Hatherly (South Africa), also racing his first season as a road pro (whilst still racing MTB) who finished the season strongly with some strong results at the Tour of Guangxi in China; and (iii) Alexandre Mayer (Mauritius) who gets stronger each year and is racing at the Pro Continental level with the Burgos Burpellet BH team, which also features the evergreen Merhawi Kudus. Merhawi will be sporting his new African Continental Road Race Champion jersey in the new season!

18-year-old Nahom Efriem (2025 Eritrean Men’s Junior National Champion) who lit up the 2025 World Champs Men’s Junior race coming in #11 place, has secured a pro deal for 2026 Team BIKE AID, alongside two other Eritrean U23 talents (Even Yemane and Yoel Habteab).

South African pair Stefan de Bod and Byron Munton were just announced on the exciting new Modern Adventure Pro Cycling (Pro Continental level) team out of the USA, recently launched by legendary George Hincapie, for the 2026 season. This is a brilliant profile for African cycling, as this team is already attracting a lot of attention.

In early January, the UCI Continental level ‘Istanbul Team’ made the announcement of four Eritrean riders being signed for 2026, a record number in one team since Dimension Data for Qhubeka’s squad having six Eritreans back in 2017. The four are the highly experienced duo of Natnael Berhane and Metkel Eyob (reunited from that 2017 squad!), paired with the U23 rising stars Awet Aman and Mewael Girmay, younger brother of Biniam.

UCI 2025 Season Review – Women

One does not need to look far to know that Mauritius’ Kim Le Court is the #1 African woman in 2026, with 2,082 UCI points making her the world’s #8 female rider. She has truly had a break-out year, and the 29-year-old seems to be growing. 

Le Court made African cycling history in the summer, wearing the famous Tour de France ‘maillot jaune’ (yellow jersey) for three days. This set a new African record, beating South Africa’s Daryl Impey who wore the jersey for two days back in 2013. She finished the season as the World’s #8 pro rider, which is the highest ranked African rider at the end of a UCI season ever.

Her pro team colleague Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio comes in second place in Africa, with 339 UCI points, after a good 2025 season, but sadly lacking in a stand-out moment. The 39-year-old is entering her last year of racing in 2026 so we hope she will roll back the years with a big win somewhere.

The rest of the top ten are a group of riders with 118-177 UCI points, mainly due to points gained at the World and National Championships in 2025, as well as the Pupkewitz Megabuild Windhoek Women Tour which took place in Namibia in July/August. 

Of the 3-10 ranked female riders, only S’annara Grove (South Africa) and Diane Ingabire (Rwanda) were on UCI Continental teams in 2025. S’annara was recently confirmed as joining the UK’s Smurfit Westrock Cycling Team in 2026, sadly Diane’s performance over her three years on the CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto Generation has not been enough, and her contract was not renewed.

This will sadly be echoed for a handful of other African riders who have struggled to move to the next level in terms of their performance, however we are hoping to see a new group African women join leading Continental teams in 2026. 

The big transfer news is around the young African star of the World Championships: 18-yo Tsige Kahsay Kiros (Ethiopia) who became African Junior Road Race champion in late November, and was subsequently announced as signing a three year deal with the CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto Generation team from 2026. She is the real deal, and we predict folk will see her race the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in the next 3-4 years. As mentioned, the CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto Generation team have a great heritage in giving African riders their chance, and vitally, have a stellar road race calendar, so we are so happy to see this news break in late November, covered by Cycling News and others.

This was then followed up by the brilliant news that Monaliza Araya Chneslasie the 2025 Eritrean women’s National Champion, has also signed a deal with the Canyon SRAM team, and will join Tsige in 2026. To have two of East Africa’s best female riders on one top international team is an incredible moment.

Alongside CANYON//SRAM, the UCI’s World Cycling Centre Women’s Continental Team has been a huge supporter of African female talent for several years, and it was annnounced recently on ProCyclingStats that they will have FIVE African women on their team in 2026. They are Lucie de Marigny-Lagesse (Mauritius), Georgette Vignonfodo (Benin), Serkalem Taye Watango (Ethiopia), Jazilla Mwamikazi (Rwanda) and Nesrine Houili (Algeria). A point of interest is that Vignonfodo is Benin’s first ever professional cyclist.

Alongside racing across the world, it is great news that the long-running Women’s Tour of Burundi has achieved UCI 2,2 status for 2026. This will attract women’s teams from across Africa, including the first ever African women’s Continental team, which was launched in November. Registered in Ethiopia, 'Team Amani Women' will feature riders from East Africa. And we now hear that South Africa’s Tshenolo Pro Cycling are aiming to launch a women’s UCI Continental team as well. This is a great development for the sport. As with all Continental teams, they will have to compete for talent, and we hope to see some rider announcements and, equally importantly, race calendars soon. 

In terms of young rider development, following the conclusion of the World Championships, and our overview that some of the core skills of cycling still need to be developed (see final post on Team Africa Rising’s Live Worlds Blog). Team Africa Rising has announced a huge expansion of the pan-African virtual training and racing programme, with the consolidation and launch of a dozen ‘Virtual Performance Centers’, in partnership with Zwift. 

By getting more and more young riders into the virtual training and racing world, we expect to see rapid gains in rider development. Supplying good quality road bicycles, in the shape needed to race and train at a high level, is such a challenge across Africa still, so we see the roll-out of the VPC programme as a key moment.

The VPC programme aims to give 1,000 more young African men and women much better access and experience of many core aspects of professional cycling at a much earlier age. VPCs are up and running, or will be by Q1 2026, in Benin, Uganda, Algeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia, Ethiopia, Namibia and more. Watch Team Africa Rising’s social media channels for more on this across 2026!

Team Africa Rising is a 501(c) registered non-profit and has been operating across Africa since 2007, helping young riders and teams get the equipment and training they need to get a shot at professional cycling. Follow Team Africa Rising across their social media channels for more in-depth news and reports on African cycling and give their new podcast a listen for an audio version of this piece.