Samuel Mugisha secured his maiden Tour du Rwanda title at the end of the 8th and final stage won by Azzedine Lagab in Kigali on Sunday.
The 20-year old rider made history as the youngest rider ever to win the annual race since it was incorporated into UCI Africa Tour in 2009.
He won the overall Tour du Rwanda award in a total time of 24h 26’53 after covering 82.3-kilometer circuit race which involved tackling the famous cobbled ‘wall of Kigali’ twice, a 12 percent steep climbs of cobblestones which attracted hundreds of fans.
Besides, the youngster who professionally rides for South Africa’s UCI Continental Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka, also scooped Best African rider.
The 2017 Rwanda Cycling Cup champion, claimed the yellow jersey on stage two; Kigali-Huye kept it throughout the race, beating his closest contender and compatriot Jean Claude Uwizeye by 21 seconds after the latter posted 24h 27’14” while Ethiopian debutant Mulu Hailemicheal finished in the third place clocking 25h 27’57”, one minute and four seconds behind.
He told the reporters: “I am overwhelmed, I don’t know how I can describe this moment, but I have to digest it,” a visibly excited Migisha revealed.
Mugisha entered this year’s tour three weeks after scooping the King of the Mountains jersey at the 55th edition of Giro della Valle d’Aosta race in Italy.
“Thanks to everyone who has been behind us since day one, I had a good team with Team Rwanda they worked for me honestly, I also had good races in Italy before I came with Dimension Data and I think it also helped me so much to win here,“ he further added.
This year was the race’s 10th anniversary but for Mugisha there is little time to savour his latest victory: the young athlete has to pack his bags and head to France for the Tour de l’Avenir, final stopover of the UCI Nations’ Cup U23.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“This is a motivation in my career, I want to forget this feat from today and start working harder for the future because I am yet to reach my dream,”[/perfectpullquote]
he noted.
What do we know about Samuel Mugisha?
Mugisha was born in December 1990 and he is from Western province town of Mukamira in Rwanda.
The eldest boy, and third born, in a family of nine, four boys and five girls, he left school in 2013 to focus on his cycling career in the following year.
Mugisha took lessons from Felix Sempoma of Club Benediction de Rubavu alongside Jock Boyer and Sterling Magnell. Impressing his coaches, Mugisha made steady progress and in 2016 was selected by the national team to race the Vuelta a Colombia, a career ‘lowlight’, and RideLondon.
He went on and rose to prominence at the 2016 edition of Rwanda Cup race and his progress helped secure his first Continental contract with the Dimension Data feeder team and a season primarily of Italian racing.
Mugisha also made his Worlds debut, making the major break of the U23 road race before finishing with a DNF against this name.
