Tour de France 2024: Biniam Girmay’s Tour success: victory of the second generation

At the finish, Biniam Girmay was overwhelmed with emotions. Tears streamed from his eyes, only to mingle with the sweat of exertion. »As a boy, I always dreamed of taking part in the Tour de France. Now I’m here and I’m winning too. This is unbelievable,” he said when he had regained his composure. The Eritrean first thanked God, then his family and his team – a rather unusual order in professional cycling, which is also rhetorically standardized. And then he set the decisive tone for the reporting: “This is a victory for all of Africa.”

Girmay classified his success as an encouragement, just as the mountain jersey that his compatriot Daniel Teklehaimanot wore during a few days of the tour nine years ago was an encouragement for him. »That showed us that we Africans can take part in the Tour de France and that we can achieve something there. That was a huge incentive. “We children and young people recreated the Tour de France on our bikes,” Girmay once said to “nd” when he himself had already achieved his first successes in the professional business. Even now it can be assumed that numerous kids in Asmara and the surrounding area will recreate the mass sprint on the streets of Turin at an altitude of more than 2000 meters.

This is also likely to be the case in Tigray, Ethiopia, where Welay Hagos Berhe managed to get a professional contract. His team Jayco Alula has not yet taken him to the Tour of France this year. At least the 22-year-old climber was already able to show his talent at the Tour de Suisse and the Tour of the Alps. Girmay’s victory in Turin is also likely to have ignited flames of passion in African cyclists in Rwanda, which currently has 13 professionals at the second-class Continental team level, and in Benin, where an interesting generation of riders is growing up. Because the Eritrean not only drives along – and occasionally lands an outsider coup – like the drivers of the previous generation around Teklehaimanot. No, Girmay has consistently been one of the favorites in classic races and mass sprints for two years.

This is a new quality. It is thanks to the Eritrean’s enormous physical talent. Merits should also be distributed to his teams: Intermarché, where he now rides, and Delko Marseille, which once signed him away from the youth management center of the UCI world association in Aigle.

But above all, it is thanks to Girmay’s own professionalism. This overcomes disadvantages. His team explained that he could still only travel to Europe with a three-month visa. Race calendars and training camps have to be squeezed into these periods. Well, he doesn’t need any special altitude training camps. His home region is at the ideal training altitude for this. But training alone, often a continent away from your teammates, requires a high level of self-motivation.

Not every one of the many talents from Africa has that. Local trainers told »nd« in February during the Tour du Rwanda that young riders sometimes only come to the long training sessions if they receive some money. »When you are no longer a child, the family expects you to be able to take care of yourself and also support your parents. There’s always pressure, and that’s why money also plays a role in training,” says Jean-Pierre van Zyl, cycling coach from South Africa.

A second hurdle is that top drivers who win a lot of races in their home country cannot mentally cope with being behind in Europe. And the current youth craze in cycling also puts African talent at a disadvantage. Because which scout who goes to U15 or U17 races in Europe also comes to Africa? But only those who make the leap to Europe at the age of 16 or 18 have a chance of a professional career later on. In order for Girmay’s victory to actually become a victory for the whole of Africa, a lot has to change structurally in cycling.