The Tour d’Algerie kicks off this Saturday. Though the President of the Moroccan cycling federation (FRMC) is confident of his cyclists, he however does not forget to reecho the fact that the most important aspect is to participate and that his main goal is to help improve African cycling.
M. Belmahi, how prepared are you for this Tour d’Algérie?
We are coming to this competition under normal conditions. We are participating with only one team but we would have loved to have two teams at this Tour… Meanwhile there will be two Algerian teams at the Moroccan tour which will run from March 23 to April 2nd.
Are you confident ?
Of course we are very confident. Our team is ranked first on the UCI African rankings. Our cyclists trained well, even though the poor climate hindered us to go through our entire preparation programme. For this Tour, we have a complete team of six athletes, we the best Moroccan cyclists. In addition, we have a very good cyclist who is now ranked third on the UCI African rankings: he is Tarik Chaoufi.
Your goal therefore is to win this tour?
No, our first objective is to participate. That is what matters most. This is because Morocco wants to modernise and bring to fruitition the culture of cycling in Africa. We now that a number of values are transmitted through cycling: Conviviality, solidarity, sports values and peace etc.We want our team to participate in practically in all the African tours given that we are of the same level with the European countries and this explains why we ask for the transfer of technology during the last UCI congress. The experiences from the Tour de France, Vuelta (Spain) or the Giro (Italy) can perfectly be transposed to emerging countries. Morocco has to be the pacesetter in African cycling especially as we know a certain number of tours have been cancelled: that of Egypt and Libya. We want to inscribe cycling in Africa, and that there is an effective participation and mobilization in Africa so that Africans can move forward in order to close the gap that separates us from the others. We are counting on strongly on the assistance of the UCI who are assisting us by ensuring that developing countries like Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and other Sub-Saharan countries double their efforts. They have opened the international centre for cycling which can give us experience and the expertise of the UCI. This is the reason why, we want to increase our participation et incite Africans to participate in all African tours.
Which of your opponents do you fear most at this Algerian tour ?
There will be tough teams like Algeria, for example. It is a very good continental side and a strong opponent from a sporting point of view, teams that are training at the international centre for cycling equally as well as European countries who have the cycling culture like: teams from France, Germany, Italy… I think the tour d’Algerie will be for us a better preparation for the tour du Maroc (Moroccan tour) which is coming up soon. We know the Moroccan national team has qualified for the London 2012 Olympics, therefore the tour d’Algerie and that of Morocco will serve as preparations for our athletes who will later open training camps for themselves.
Has your first position of the new UCI African rankings which was revealed earlier in the week boosted your cyclists?
This is the third year that we are first on the African rankings, on the individual as well as team level. However, the tours that were cancelled hindered us from increasing our points.
At the team level, we have a considerable distance ahead of South Africa even though they might surely leapfrog us after the organization of the new championships, which Morocco hopes to consolidate its first place God willing , on the individual as well as team level. We will defend our position and I hope we will confirm our hegemony in Africa.
