The pressure has a little come down over the Team Rwanda one week after its triumph on his home soil and new ambitions have already raised. The national team occupied all three podium positions, with Jean Bosco Nsengimana in first place, and a total of six places in the top 10. The achievement is particularly impressive as the Tour of Rwanda is considered as one of the two major African races – alongside the Tropicale Amissa Bongo, Gabon – and the hilliest road event of the continent – 15,000 m of altitude difference within 950 km.
Paradoxically the national team says "it has been its most complicated year" since the race has been added to the UCI calendar in 2007. "Until the very last stage, a criterium around Kigali, I didn't know if the team was really in a frame of mind to win," Kimberly Moszyk Coats, told Cyclingnews.
The Team Rwanda Director of Marketing and Logistics refers to a strike the riders started five days before the race, claiming a bonus of $3,000 notably to cover their health insurance. The national team refused this "blackmail" and threatened to withdraw the riders from the roster, including the reigning champion Valens Ndayisenga, a trainee at the World Cycling Centre and now the most popular athlete of the country, in all disciplines.
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"It was a misunderstanding and I am glad we sorted everything out," says Aimable Bayingana, the President of the National Federation (Ferwacy). "After such a tricky situation we can even say the team is now stronger than before, as their success proves".
The internal tensions were not the only danger Team Rwanda had to face for eight days. The strong outsiders (such as Jérémy Bescond, a former Cofidis' rider), the heavy rain, the muddy roads and a vicious 15% hill on the penultimate stage, an "African Koppenberg", could have defeated the national team.
However Jean Bosco Nsengimana retained the lead from the prologue where he had taken victory on a fast course around Amahoro Stadium, in Kigali.
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