Top five

1. Valens Ndayisenga 10’47” Rwanda2. Perez Mancebo 10’56” Sky Dive Dubai3. Janvier Hadi 10’59” Rwanda4. Soufiane Haddi 11’04” Regional Team East Netherlands5. David van Eerd 11’09” United Arab Emirates

Reigning Tour du Rwanda champion Valens Ndayisenga won the 8km prologue stage on Wednesday at the ongoing Tour of Egypt in Hurghada, a town on the coast of the Red Sea.

Country-mate Janvier Hadi came third while Joseph Biziyaremye was in 7th position at the five-day competition that has attracted 13 teams including the national teams of Algeria, Morocco, Eritrea, Tunisia, hosts Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and United Arab Emirates.

Clubs like Velo Club Sovac from Algeria, Skydive Dubai, Regional Team East Netherlands, BC South East from Great Britain and Team Erdinger from Germany are also competing at the first competition on the 2015 UCI Africa calendar.

Teams are searching for points that will see the top four in Africa at the end of this year qualifying for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Brazil.

Youngster Patrick Byukusenge was 15th while last year’s stage 4 winner at the La Tropicale Amissa Bongo in Gabon, Bonaventure Uwizeyimana was 22nd. Emile Bintunimana was 35th.

Speaking to Times Sport in an exclusive interview, head coach Felix Sempoma said, "I am very impressed with the way we have started. It is very important for us to win the prologue stage because it means that now we have the yellow jersey.”

"We are very lucky that the weather is the same as the one we are used to in Musanze back home, at the Africa Rising Cycling Centre. This has helped us, however, it is very windy but we expected it and will try to make sure we deal with it throughout,” explained the excited Sempoma.

The Rwandan tactician who is in charge of Team Rwanda Cycling for a third time revealed that, "Our aim now is to try and retain the yellow jersey.”

"We shall work very hard in tomorrow’s (today’s) stage and fight to stay with it till the last day. It will definitely not be easy because the teams here are very tough but we have to try our best.”

Today’s stage is a total distance of 185km from Al Gouna to Ras Hgareb in the 2.2 event.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw