As the first Emirati rider in the Women’s WorldTour and the sole national representative on UAE Team ADQ, Safiya Al Sayegh is feeling both the pressures and the privileges of her position going into 2022.
20-year-old Al Sayegh is the UAE national road race and time trial champion, and was approached by the team last November after UAE Team Emirates took over Alé BTC Ljubljana’s WorldTeam licence.
This is Al Sayegh’s first professional contract and a significant adjustment from racing for the Dubai Police Cycling Team, but her first experience with UAE Team ADQ has been positive.
“When I was going to Spain [for training camp] and before I left, it was quite overwhelming to think of how it was going to be and how it's going to go,” she wondered.
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“Will I adjust with the team and how will I get on? But I'm very happy to say that everything went really well. I really enjoyed it, it was a really good start.”
Al Sayegh is the first female rider from the UAE to join a WorldTeam and only the second of any gender, after UAE Team Emirates’ Yousif Mirza, and she acknowledged the pressures that come with being in that position.
“It's a big honour, and it's actually a big responsibility on my shoulders,” she said. “I feel like I hold a lot of hope, especially from my country, because lots of people have helped me. And it really makes me want to push harder and strive even higher, with all the support and hope I have from the country – and from the Arab world, actually. It really pushes me to want more, to achieve more and to progress.”
The men’s UAE Team Emirates squad, Al Sayegh said, has helped raise the profile of the sport in the UAE among both men and women, and she is looking forward to ‘representing all the local girls’.
Though an experienced racer in the UAE and Asia, Al Sayegh has only raced in Europe once before, the Rás na mBan stage race in Ireland in 2017, and she is conscious of the challenges ahead of her this year.
“Keeping up with the level is one concern I have,” she said.
“But hopefully with hard work, I will try to progress to the level of Europe. And one of my concerns is that pretty much every day in the peloton, crashes are happening. So I just hope to stay safe while racing.”
In the UAE much of Al Sayegh’s riding is done on wide highways or flat, protected bike paths, meaning even the change in terrain is a source of apprehension.
“In Europe, I know some races can be on quite dangerous roads or have quite steep downhills and stuff. So I do look forward to racing but I am quite worried about all the crashes and the dangers.”
Al Sayegh will continue to compete primarily in the UAE for the opening months of the season as she completes her university studies in Dubai, and will join the team in Europe from May.
“I really look forward to all the races my team is going to race, and I'll be cheering here from the UAE.”
