Joseph Areruya emerged the winner of the recently concluded Tour du Rwanda — the country’s most prestigious international cycling competition.

Areruya won with a record time of 3:12:12. The cyclist who belongs to South Africa’s Dimension Data team, joins previous Tour du Rwanda winners Valens Ndayisenga and Jean Bosco Nsengimana.

The tour works closely with the Rwanda Cycling Federation and has made a name for itself as the region’s leading cycling tournament. It incorporates local, regional and international cyclists.

This year, the Tour du Rwanda kicked off its ninth edition with a 3.3km preliminary session on November 12- 19 at Amahoro Stadium in Kigali. The race saw 17 teams with five cyclists racing for seven days.

This year’s edition had seven stages and the first stage kicked off from Kigali to Huye and Bosco Nsengimana emerged the winner. He is a former Tour du Rwanda winner and is in the country’s national team. He won with a time of 3:36 on the 3.3km. He emerged the fastest rider in the competition’s stage one.  

Nsengimana won two seconds faster than reigning champion Valens Ndayisenga while Stephan De Bod of Dimension Data for Qhubeka finished third.

Cyclists at U-turn during the competition. This year’s edition had seven stages and the first stage kicked off from Kigali to Huye and Bosco Nsengimana emerged the winner. PHOTO | CYRIL NDEGEYA | NATION

The competition continued to Nyanza, Rubavu, Musanze, Nyamata, Rwamagana, before finishing up in Kigali on November 19 at stage seven, a 120-kilometre ten-lap circuit of the capital.

Rwanda was represented by a trio from the national team, Club Benediction of Rubavu and Club Les Amis Sportifs of Rwamagana.

There were also national teams from Mauritius, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Morocco and Algeria.
The competition also featured Union Cycliste Internationale teams like Dimension Data For Qhubeka (South-Africa), Tirol Cycling Team (Austria) Team Illuminate (USA), Bike Aid (Germany), FK Dukla Banska Bystrica (Slovakia), Japan’s Interpro Cycling Academy, club teams like Lowestrates.Com (Canada), Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (France) and Kenya Riders-Safaricom.

Van Engren from the Germany UCI Continental Team Bike Aid emerged the best combative rider while Nathaniel Barnham from Eritrea was named the best climber and garnered 48 points.

Kenya’s Suleiman Kangangi of Team Bike Aid finished in third place in the general classification with a time of 20:23:58, while Team Rwanda’s captain Nsengimana came in fourth place with a time of 20:23:39.