Félix Sempoma, the head coach of Ignite Benediction Club and assistant coach of the national cycling team, has said that it will require ‘time and hard work’ for riders to get back to competitive form after months of lockdown due to Covid-19 pandemic. Cycling is one of the non-contact sports that were early this month allowed to resume outdoor training, but, according to Sempoma, the coordination and involved logistics have proved tough for many coaches, and most riders still train individually at home. “The riders still train at individual basis from their homes, what I do at the moment is providing them with a weekly training programme and close monitoring. It is definitely not enough,” Sempoma told Times Sport in a telephone interview on Monday. “The coordination and logistics involved to bring the team together for team training is not easy, and at the same time it is risky. So with the riders scattered in different places, I hope they have been abiding to home workouts since March.” “Right now it is hard to determine when exactly we will start team training. I will keep doing my best to maintain close follow-ups with the boys and motivating them until we are able to meet.” The 2020 Tour du Rwanda, which was won by Eritrean Natnael Tesfazion on March 1, was the last cycling event held in the country before the government announced the lockdown and suspension of sports activities mid-March to curb the spread of the pandemic. Other individual sports allowed to conduct training in public include athletics, hiking, golf, tennis, fencing, motor sports and badminton.
