An Update on the Africa Tour

Words: Jeremy Ford - Team Africa Rising

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Although it is just the first of April and we have only had one of the eight Africa Tour UCI stage races (Tour of Rwanda), many of the 120 African men and women on UCI teams for 2026 have been racing, so we thought we would take a look at the 'Africa Tour' UCI points league tables so far.

I have had to manually create the tables below from ProCyclingStats and UCI data as the '2026 Season' league tables on the UCI website are a bit misleading. They are not in fact '2026 season' but a rolling '52 previous weeks' table from the day you look at them so really don't tell the true 'this season' story. I would truly love it if Biniam Girmay had won 1761 points by this point this year, but sadly not!

If the points numbers below look high for the end of March, remember that, bizarrely, the 2025 African Continental Road Championships took place in November (outside of the UCI 2025 season), so the points won at that event actually count for the 2026 season. We are yet to hear the plans for the timing of the African Conti Champs which will take place later this year...

Africa Tour - Men

So let’s take a look at the men first. Unsurprisingly, Biniam Girmay (NSN Cycling Team) is top of the charts so far. His big win in the Clasica de Almeria in February brought in a healthy 250 points to boost his numbers nicely. Natnael Tesfatsion (Movistar) had a great start to the season on tour in Australia with his team, and brought home 270 points from races there.

Eritrea, Africa’s #1 cycling nation for several years now, takes four of the top five male riders places! The evergreen Merhawi Kudus (Burgos Burpellet BH) benefited from 250 points for his win at the African Conti Champs, and Awet Aman (Istanbul Team) who came second in that race. Awet is the first rider on the table from a Continental team, and first U23 also so kudos to him. South Africa's Stefan de Bod (Modern Adventure Pro Cycling) rounds out the top five and is having a great to start the season for his new team.

You will notice that all the top ten are professional riders on UCI teams now, which has not always been the case. It’s a great sign of the progress being made across Africa.

As we get into the season and the Africa Tour 2.2 tours begin to take place with more U23 riders on their national teams racing consistently, we will see some riders without a pro team appear in the overall UCI points table. Whether a rider without a UCI team will make the top ten with the strong numbers already above, and 90 other African men out there on UCI teams, remains to be seen.

To see the full list of UCI Africa Tour and UCI points races taking place across Africa in 2026, check out this schedule created by the Africa Rising Cycling non-profit.

Africa Tour - Women

I am excited to present this data as it is exclusive to Africa Rising Cycling. It does not exist anywhere else in the true 'points won this season' format for 2026, and sadly the UCI still doesn’t publish an Africa Tour league table for women, despite my regular prods on this.

As you would expect, Africa's top female rider of the last few years - Kim Le Court Pienaar (AG Insurance - Soudal Team) - leads the way, taking 300 points at the recent UAE Women's Tour.

Hayley Preen (South Africa) is sitting in second place, based on winning the African Conti Champs women's road race, and sixth in the South Africa National Championships road race in January. And rounding out the top three is Birikti Fessehaye (Eritrea) whose second in the Africa Champs women's road race won her 200 points.

We extended the women's league table to the top 15 riders to show those with 75 points or more for context, and some of the South African and Namibian riders have benefitted from their National Championships being very early in the year. This will balance itself out as we get deeper into 2026 and more National Championships take place.

Overall, the state of African cycling is looking very healthy for 2026. With over 120 men and women signed to UCI teams around the world, seven UCI Continental teams registered across Africa and eight UCI stage races across the continent, I am hoping that 2026 is a key development year for the sport. More updates soon!