Eritrea’s Biniam Girmay has spoken out about his doubts over competing at the 2025 UCI Road World Championships, a landmark event held for the first time in Africa, saying the course was too challenging and offered little opportunity for riders from competing African nations.
The 25-year-old is a multiple-time Tour de France stage winner racing for Intermarché-Wanty and the silver medallist in the under-23 elite men’s race at the 2021 Worlds in Leuven. He likened the elite men’s road race to the Monument Liège-Bastogne-Liège, saying the route would not suit him and, in fact, would only suit a very few select riders on the WorldTour.
“I can answer this in a quite simple way. In Liège-Bastogne-Liège, I cannot go, I never go, even in Il Lombaria, because it is quite hard and I don’t want to go there just to be at the start, to be dropped, it’s not nice,” Girmay told the assembled press at the Kigali Convention Centre on Friday.
The elite men’s race features a 15.1km city circuits, nine at the start and six at the end, along with the additional challenge of a mid-race extension loop that boast three more climbs; Côte de Péage, which is 1.8km at 5.9%, Mount Kigali is the longest climb at 5.9km at 6.9% and peaks at 1,771 metres altitude, and the famed Mur de Kigali, which is only 400m but features unruly cobbles and is punishingly steep with an average of 11%. The peloton will race a total of 267.5km with 5,475m of elevation gain.
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