Team Rwanda will compete in a 2.HC race for the first time this week when the Colorado Classic rolls out of Colorado Springs for stage 1 on Thursday.
The start in Colorado Springs will be the culmination of several years of work to bring the African team back to the States after it competed here in two national calendar events in its inaugural year, 2007, at the Tour of the Gila in New Mexico and the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic in Oregon.
The Continental team was made famous in the 2012 movie 'Rising from the Ashes,' which depicted the Rwandan national team's determination to rise out of the 1994 genocide and compete in the 2012 Olympics road race.
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Five years on from that effort, the team and its 35 riders have grown to the point that they can compete internationally, Adrien Niyonshuti riding in the 2012 London Olympic Games in mountain biking, and, most recently, Joseph Areruya (Dimension Data for Qhubeka) winning a stage this year in the U23 Baby Giro.
The six-man squad in Colorado includes Jean Claude Uwizeye, Jean Bosco Nsengimana, Jean Paul Rene Ukiniwabo, Bonaventure Uwizeyimana, Gasore Hategeka and Didier Munyaneza.
"We've been working for the last four years with Colorado," team manager Kimberly Coats told Cyclingnews last month at the Cascade Cycling Classic in Oregon, where the team raced as a warm up for Colorado.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
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