“I had to get a lawyer involved and the President has now stepped down. I don’t blame the Confederation because they think the Presidents of the Federations honour their rules and regulations. They have a code of ethics and we all sign it, but the people I’m talking about like the former President of my Federation and the Secretary General, they haven’t even read it.”

We were first directed towards Linda by Kimberly Coats of Team Africa Rising, an organisation which was originally set up as Team Rwanda in 2006 before changing their name to reflect their growing work on the continent.

Kimberly has been heavily involved in the progress of cycling in Africa since 2009 and has been an integral part of the program that has transformed professional cycling from a foreign concept to the most popular sport in Rwanda.

Team Rwanda have produced two Olympians to date, including two-time flag bearer Adrien Niyonshuti, who had six of his brothers killed in the genocide of 1994. Adrien was the first of now several Rwandan graduates to seal a professional cycling contract, and it was while looking to replicate this success in the women’s ranks that the Africa Rising Women’s Cycling Program was born.

Even Jeanne d’Arc, the most successful female rider in Rwandan history and one of the best on the continent, still finds her friends and family sceptical of her cycling career. It’s this kind of culture which Kimberly is determined to change.

“It’s hard, because they don’t have that competitive drive in Rwanda. It’s in our psyche as Westerners to be competitive but here not so much.

“Jeanne d’Arc is having a really hard time right now because she has very little self-discipline or motivation and I think she’s being influenced by people that she shouldn’t allow herself to be influenced by.

“We found out this week that Jeanne’s family hasn’t been supportive because she hasn’t made any money in a while because of injury. The second the cash stops the family are saying ‘you shouldn’t have quit school’.

“Rwanda is very much in a culture of following. People ask how genocide could happen here because it’s so peaceful and everybody seems so nice, but there is a mentality of following. I have seen some of these riders follow what was a bad attitude and bad thinking into losing their careers.

“If we focus on the women then the men will come too. If you focus on the men then the women will never get anything.”

“I got to thinking about it and it really struck me dealing with all these issues with Jeanne that we needed to work on the grassroots level for women’s cycling. We’re taking a step back so that in the next couple of years we can take a giant step forward.”

The problem is that the “culture of chauvinism” is so deep-rooted in the cycling infrastructure in Africa that even such an obviously significant and farsighted project will struggle for funding.

This comes down in large part to the fact that women are not often given positions of power in Africa, and when they are, as in Linda’s case, they often find themselves undermined or overruled.

“Women who are on Federations serve nominal roles such as the secretary or minute-taker,” she says. “Positions of importance are all given to the men. In my situation of VP, the SG was a woman, but both of us were completely overruled and not listened to.”

A large part of the Africa Rising Women’s Cycling Program will be to put more women, and men passionate about developing women’s cycling, into positions where they can make a change, and enable them to do exactly that.

Until then, Kimberly and Linda will have to fight tooth and nail in order to secure support from Federations who are first and foremost looking out for the men.

“We need the National Federations to have female representation, because right now there are 54 countries and there is not one woman that I know on any one of them,” continued Kimberly.

Linda was particularly frustrated by the lack of effort from national Federations to secure readily available funding from the Olympic Solidarity project, which “has a fund of over $100,000 available for each country. And women’s cycling is right at the top of their priorities second only to athletics.”

She sights the two Continental golds, two silvers and singular bronze medal won by young Zimbabwean cyclists in 2015 and laments how Federations hunting instant gratification fail to look to the future.

“They don’t see that the progress and the success and the medals will come from the women,” she says. “Even to get an African man to the World Championships is almost a non-starter, but women we can get there. Without question.”

Both Linda and Kimberly are keen to emphasise that there are some influential men pushing too for the cause. A pro team in South Africa have recently provided funding for two talented Ethiopian women to come out and ride with them, JP van Zyl has been doing good work at the World Cycling Centre Africa and there are numerous instances of individuals on the continent pushing to get women into their teams.

One such example is 23-year-old Togolese road cycling champion Abdou-Raouf Akanga, who founded Kpalimé Cycling Project in Togo in 2012 and has 11 women riders.

“It’s the same thing for female riders on my team. Sometimes they can’t come to training because of domestic work.”

“I try to show people that women can also be cyclists and do the same thing we are doing,” Abdou-Raoud tells me. “I also go on the local radio and talk about creating a female team, and try to change people’s minds about women on racing bikes being something bad.

“Like everywhere in Africa, women are the busiest in the house. It’s the same thing for female riders on my team. Sometimes they can’t come to training because of domestic work.

“Women also have the right to discover the joy and freedom of cycling. Cycling helps teach lessons of courage and skills that will be useful at school and in normal life. In the long term it will be great to see an all African Female Team competing across the world.”

Ultimately, the way to make that happen is to make women’s cycling a priority by installing women in influential positions at the highest level.

Nobody has replaced Linda in her role with the Confederation. ARWC are looking to secure 2-3 spots for women on the committee in 2017. They are looking to work with the UCI to develop women commissaries, coaches and mechanics. They are looking to work with partners and Federations to bring bicycles to school. All the talk is about getting more women involved at organisational level.

Kimberly concludes: “It’s identifying all these people and giving them tools and giving them power to make changes on their Federation and find people who will sponsor and donate bikes.

“It’s getting these people involved and then in their respective countries looking at how we can get more women commissaries? How can we get more women coaches? How can we get more women on the National Federations? There’s no woman in these Federations so how can these woman succeed – because they’re always going to be the last to get anything?

“If we focus on the women then the men will come too. If you focus on the men, then the women will never get anything.”

February is the ‘Challenge’ month on Mpora. Click here to read the rest of the issue…

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