National cycling team riders that will represent the country at the forthcoming 2017 edition of Tour of Cameroon are being put through final paces at Africa Rising Cycling Center (ARCC) in Musanze district, Northern Province.

The annual 2.2 UCI Africa Tour road race is slated to get underway on March 11 and run until March 19.

Rwanda will be represented by a team of six riders at the nine-day event. Two of the six riders; Bonaventure Uwizeyimana and Rene Jean Paul Ukiniwabo, are currently participating at La Tropicale Amisa Bongo in Gabon that climaxes on Sunday (today).

The other four currently in training in Musanze include; the reigning Tour du Rwanda champion Valens Ndayisenga, Jean Bosco Nsengimana, Ephrem Tuyishimire and Jean Claude Uwizeye.

Speaking to Sunday Sport, Team Rwanda head coach Sterling Magnell revealed that preparations are going on well and the objective to win the competition. "The team is coming to a good level; the training has gone well this week. This will be a long race but I am optimistic that they can perform well and the goal is to win the general classification,” said Magnell

According to Magnell, the team will fly to Cameroon on March 8.

This will be Ndayisenga’s last competition in Team Rwanda’s jersey before heading to Austria to join his new UCI Team Tirol Cycling—the 23-year old signed a one-year contract until the end of this year.

Team Rwanda will be looking to improve on last year’s performance when they finished in the third place, behind Morocco and Dukla Banska Bystrica from Slovakia.

Errafai Mohamed of Morocco is the defending champion while Rwanda’s Camera Hakuzimana finished in third place in general classification.

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