For Safiya Al-Sayegh (UAE Team ADQ), the 2024 season will mark the highlight of her cycling career so far as she is preparing to race in the Olympic Games road race in Paris.
Cyclingnews sat down with the 22-year-old Emirati to talk about her way into pro cycling, her goals for the future, and the development of women’s cycling in the Middle East.
Even though she was not racing the UAE Tour Women herself, having made her season debut in the Australian races in January instead, Al-Sayegh was in high demand by local media and fans as she is the first Emirati women’s cyclist to qualify for the Olympics. Sometimes, she has to dampen her compatriots’ enthusiasm.
“People come to me and say, ‘We’d love to see you on the podium’, but the qualification itself is such a big thing to me,” she said. “I actually really appreciate people who come up to me and say ‘do your best’ rather than have the pressure of a medal because, realistically, we know the gap between our region and the rest of the world is big. It is such a new sport here.
“I aspire to finish the Olympics and be in the competition, not winning it, but to be there to honour the flag of my country in such a prestigious race and hopefully make it to the Olympics in the coming editions as well. It’s such an honour to be the first Emirati women’s cyclist to qualify. Our champion in the male team qualified for Rio and Tokyo, and I aspire to be the next to qualify for several Olympics.” [Yousif Mirza qualified for the Tokyo Olympics but, in the end, did not participate in 2021 after the COVID-19-induced postponement, ed.]
When she lines up with the best of the sport in Paris, Al-Sayegh will have come a long way from her beginnings in cycling. When she was 14 years old, her father, a former professional footballer, bought bikes for both of them, and they started riding around the neighbourhood.
“It was a good start to get cycling fitness because it is very different to other sports. I was doing some ball sports, team sports, swimming, and gymnastics, but cycling uses different muscles, and you need a lot more stamina for it. I learned to change gears and other stuff and then rode my first road bike in 2016. I was really thrilled with the feeling on the bike. I learnt about the Dubai Tour amateur race and that it was for women as well. I never knew there was actually competitive cycling,” Al-Sayegh describes how she got into cycling.
“Then I heard that the national team was recruiting; they wanted younger…
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