{"id":21506,"date":"2013-10-11T09:15:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-11T08:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2013\/10\/11\/new-talented-athletes-tested-in-africa-by-wcc-r1014\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T12:21:42","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T12:21:42","slug":"new-talented-athletes-tested-in-africa-by-wcc-r1014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/new-talented-athletes-tested-in-africa-by-wcc-r1014\/","title":{"rendered":"New talented athletes tested in Africa by WCC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before winning the GP of Zurich last August, the Namibian Raul Costa had been discovered by the World Cycling Centre (WCC) during a training camp at its South African base. This sort of camp, open to numerous African countries, had already led to other discoveries, such as Tanzania\u2019s Richard Laizer, now a member of the reserve team attached to Team MTN-Qhubeka p\/b Samsung.<\/p>\n

\n\"ccs-41808-0-39302600-1381483035.png\"<\/a>Image credit: uci.ch<\/span>\n<\/div>\n

To keep up the momentum, new athletes are currently (October 1st \u2013 15th) on a camp in Potchesfroom (South Africa), the WCC\u2019s African base.<\/p>\n

“The common objective for our riders is to increase their level”, explains Andrew Smith, coach with the WCC in Africa. \u201cThey will get experience at some local races and prepare the African Continental Championships.”<\/p>\n

The participants, aged 18 to 26, number sixteen and represent ten countries: South Africa, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Kenya, Lesotho, Namibia, Sierra Leone, the Seychelles, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n

Some of them had already taken part in the detection camp in Babati (Tanzania) from May 25th to June 2nd. \u201cWe will see how they have progressed since then under their national coaches, who also learned from the training camp in Tanzania,\u201d says Smith.<\/p>\n

The coach will test the trainees\u2019 power measures at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of their stay in Potchesfroom in order to evaluate their physiological progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time we have been able to afford such a scientific testing programme,\u201d says the Centre\u2019s Director Jean-Pierre Van Zyl.<\/p>\n

The young athletes will not only improve physically, but also technically and tactically, as the WCC in Africa teaches the athletes \u201call the basics of cycling.\u201d The best of them can then travel to the WCC in Aigle (Switzerland) for a more advanced training course.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the 16 young talents will test their progress at local competitions such as the Jakaranda Satellite Classic on October 19th. Van Zyl doesn\u2019t expect his riders to be at the forefront for that, but is working hard to ensure that it will soon be the case. \u201cSome trainees are beginners, some are at a level that is OK, and some will be able to follow the main peloton at the next race. But at the end of the training camp we expect all our riders be part of the first group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young Africans in the lead of the race: it is not just a concrete sporting goal, but a metaphor symbolising the rise of African cycling over the last few years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before winning the GP of Zurich last August, the Namibian Raul Costa had been discovered by the World Cycling Centre (WCC) during a training camp at its South African base. This sort of camp, open to numerous African countries, had already led to other discoveries, such as Tanzania\u2019s Richard Laizer, now a member of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3308,93,5149,5148],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-21506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-team-mtn-qhubeka","tag-uci","tag-wcc","tag-world-cycling-centre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21506"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=21506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}