Tour de France stage 12 winner Biniam Girmay argued that his repeat sprint victories can play an important role raising the profile of the sport of cycling, and that boosted investment in African cycling, in particular, would ensure that “we can have a more global sport".
After the Intermarché-Wanty racer became the first Black African ever to win a stage of the Tour de France in Turin on stage 3, Girmay has now taken two more stages in the 2024 Tour de France, on stage 8 and most recently in a mass dash for the line at Villeneuve-sur-Lot. The 24-year-old currently has a commanding lead in the green jersey competition, more than 100 points ahead of last year’s overall winner Jasper Philipsen (Deceuninck-Alpecin).
However, Girmay is also very conscious that his breakthrough in the Tour has the potential to make major waves well beyond the race. And on Thursday one reporter asked that given - as he saw it - that cycling has traditionally been considered a very white, Euro-centric sport, whether Girmay was comfortable with the huge impact he was having as a rider.
Girmay agreed that while he was comfortable in himself and his current role in the sport, cycling was not, in his opinion, “a global sport like others, so I’m just super happy to show and deliver it so that cycling can be more global".
However, as the only Black African in the Tour de France peloton and just one of a handful in the WorldTour in general, he argued that the time had come for European teams to invest more in African cycling to ensure that “we have a more global sport".
As he put it, “I’m the only Black rider in the [Tour de France] peloton and that’s not nice, to be honest.”
Girmay reported that he also saw “more and more people in the peloton from other continents [apart from Europe] so that’s nice for cycling, especially for African cycling”.
“It’s really good for the impact, [it offers] a good vision for young talent, because if you work on that, especially in the European teams, if they invest a lot in African cycling for sure we can have a more global sport. And that’s always nice to see.
“This year I’m the only black rider in the [Tour de France] peloton, it’s not nice, to be honest, so I wish there were more black riders in the peloton. For me [personally] I’m pretty comfortable because I enjoy every single moment what I’m doing.”
Already victorious in stages 3, 8 and 12, Girmay is currently the only sprinter in the Tour with more than one win and he will have the chance of a fourth in Pau on Sunday. With no Champs Elysées finish for the Tour de France this year, the last clear-cut bunch sprint comes on stage 16 into Nîmes.
“I’m here now in the best shape of my life, I wake up and look in the mirror in the mornings and say 'let’s do again',” Girmay recounted.
“To win three stages - I knew how hard any stages is to win in pro racing - but to do that in the Tour de France, it’s a huge motivation for the rest of my career.”
However, he ruled out the idea that after such a dramatic start to his Tour de France stage count, he might one day get as far as the current record of 35.
“I don’t even have 35 victories in my whole career yet,” he joked to reporters, having a current win count total of 16 to date. “But in any case I have already spoken many times to people and everybody congratulates me for taking even two Tour de France, or now three. So really I don’t think 35 is possible.”
The public response to his success, he said, has been overwhelming, to the point where his phone has all but crashed.
Stardom
“It’s going crazy, probably now it’s better I don’t use it. After my first win I had close to WhatsApp 600 messages. It got to the point where I couldn’t see the messages from my team on the group WhatsApp, so I had to ask my team what the plan was for the day.”
The plan for stage 12 and his victory on the long final straightaway in Villeneuve-sur-Lot was certainly followed to the letter by his team, he said. Girmay paid tribute to the whole squad, with the idea of a super-fast stage, run off at an average speed of nearly 48 kph despite being over 200 kilometres long, being to tire out some of his rivals.
“They did a super-good job throughout,” he said. “We didn’t want to have an easy start and everybody fresh at the finish," as happened in Tuesday's much slower stage, for example. "We wanted to put them under a lot of pressure.
“Then the plan was for me to be more protected in the last 5, 6 ks and then to get a good lead out. Mike [Teunissen, teammate] did a supergood lead out in the last kilometre and dropped me off 200 metres from the line.” After which, Girmay was more than in his element.
The progress for Girmay since last year’s Tour has been massive, he recognised, with a lone third place on one stage his best result in 2023. And as he put it, the fact he had such an impressive early start to his career, with a win in the Giro d’Italia and in Gent-Wevelgem in 2022, made it much harder for him to keep the momentum going in 2023.
“To be honest the last couple of years have been pretty hard. I got some good results early, but from then on there was a lot of pressure on my shoulders from the media. Everybody had high expectations. So last year was the time to learn about everything and improve.
“I specially learned quite a lot from the Tour, because I put pressure on myself to the highest limit, but for nothing. So this year I changed a lot of things, like my training schedule and strategy, and a big thanks to Aike [Verbeek, team performance manager] for that.
"And in this year and in this Tour, I’m just improving on my mistakes from last year," he explained, and with three wins in his pocket already, there's no denying it’s been to astoundingly impressive effect.
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