The tempo is high as ten cycling teams descend down in Douala a coastal city in southwest Cameroon ahead of the 20th Grand Prix Chantal Biya- a professional road bicycle racing stage race named in honor of Chantal Biya, the First Lady of Cameroon.
A six-man strong Team Rwanda including three other support staff flew out of the country early Monday aboard the national carrier RwandAir. The team has been training so hard across Rwanda in preparation of this highly competitive race.
The race will take place in three regions including; Littoral, Centre, East and South regions covering a distance of 685.3km. A total of ten teams from Europe and Africa are lined up for this race. The different delegations have all arrived in Cameroon for a 5-day race.
Team Rwanda is composed of Rnus Byiza Uhiriwe, Patrick Byukusenge, Moïse Mugisha and Didier Munyaneza led by former Tour du Rwanda champions Joseph Areruya and Samuel Mugisha.
There will be two participating teams from Europe represented by the French military team and Dukkla Banska Bystrica from Slovakia. Cameroon, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Rwanda and Benin will represent the rest of the race teams.
The ceremony for the presentation of participating teams will take place at the Esplanade of the IUG in Douala on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, a statement signed by Honore Yossi the President of the Cameroon Cycling Federation indicates that the caravan for the competition will undergo Covi-19 test at least 72 hours before the competition and all positive results will be isolate and treated by the Covid-19 medical team.
According to the official programme from the Cameroon Cycling Federation (FECACYCLISME), the race will kick off with a closed circuit race in the city of Douala (spanning 95.9km).
Meanwhile, the second stage will take place along the Akonolinga-Abong-Mbang highway (139.5km), the third stage is set from Yaounde to Ebolowa (Nkolandom) (167km).
The Fourth stage is set from Zoétélé town-Nkwang-Meyomessala (116.4km) and the last lap will take place along the Sangmelima-Yaounde highway (166km).
Cameroon has not yet confirmed whether the First Lady Chantal Biya will make an appearance in the 2020 race.
However, in the 2019 finals, First Lady, Chantal BIYA personally presided over the last stage of the cycling tour, where she handed over the yellow jersey and the main trophy to Algeria's Azzedine Lagab.
Source : https://taarifa.rw/grand-prix-chantal-biya-kicks-off-wednesday-in-cameroon/
