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Meron Russom speaks about his career, predicts Tour de France until 2020
By Kebreab Gebre, capitaleritrea news, April 27, 2013 in SPORTS
MTN-Qhubeka Samsung’s star cyclist Meron Russom says Eritrea’s current cycling hype is just the beginning of something bigger to come. Cycling is Eritrea’s most popular national sport with a handful of young professional Eritrean athletes competing for different teams in Eritrea and abroad – an impressive accomplishment for a newly born tiny East African country located in the Horn of Africa.
Eritrea and its cycling potential has been making headlines recently being compared to Colombia, which had similar experiences until it was recognized as a serious contender in the international cycling arena. Cycling in Eritrea has its own tradition and history.
“Everyone is creazy about cycling in Eritrea and that’s why Eritreans get better and better each day.” says Meron Russom “Maybe it’s an heritage or some kind of left over from the Italian colonial era”.
MTN-Qhubeka Samsung’s Meron Russom was born in the 12th of March 1987 in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. He joined the Finland Mission Elementary School in Asmra at the age of five. Meron was an average student at school, passing his Gerneral Matriculation – a high school examination requiered for admission to university – his father bought him a new mountain bike as a graduation gift. However, he never went to university and rather spent more of his time on riding his new bike than his studies – he fell in love with riding a bicycle.
“After my father bought me that mountain bike, I rode to places like Dekemhare, Debarwa or Hemberti with my friends every weekend.” Meron said “ However it got really exiting when I could watch my Idol Yonas Zekarias (Halabay) and others like Mehreteab Kebreab (Raesu) and Senay Tsegay, the then Eritrean famous riders compete during local competitions in down town Asmara.”Once the competitions were over Meron and his friends would race a few laps along the racing lane pretending to be their heroes.
Not long after Meron joined his first serious competition with the Hamamate Junior Mountain cycling race he quickly moved up to the 3rd division of the central Asmara cycling region. In 2003 he qualified for the second division where he spent two years as a member of the ASBECO cycling team, which paved his way to join Eritrea’s first cycling division. As a member of the Eritrean National Cycling Team, Meron was competing in various African tours and accumulated numerous UCI (African Continental Cycling) points. He was then spotted by the UCI African Continental Cycling Centre (ACCC) and shortly after went to South Africa to train at the centre.
“Together with two other Eritrean riders I got the chance from the Eritrean Cycling Federation to join the UCI African Continental Training Center in September 2011.” Meron says “We did lots of races as part of ACCC in South Africa and shortly after in 2012 we were spotted by scouts from team MTN-Qhubeka Samsung.”
MTN-Qhubeka is more than bicycle racing team. The club runs projects aiming at helping rural communities by awarding bicycles to children in return for work done to improve their environment and their community. Since 2004 Qhubeka was able to distribute more than 40 000 bikes in Africa.
Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung is Africa’s first ever UCI registered Professional Continental cycling team. Talented athletes like Meron Russom race to build exposure for Qhubeka’s rural initiatives and ride to inspire potential athletes within the community of Qhubeka bike recipients.
Last year Meron won a 2nd place for his team in the 2012 La Tropicala Amissa Bongo stage race – a famous Gabonese cycling competition with international cycling standard – and became the first African rider to wear yellow jersey. The overall winner was Anthony Charteau (Europcar) – Mountains race winner of the 2010 Tour de France – beating Meron by only 8 seconds. Besides, he was ranked Africa’s 5th best cyclist in 2012.
Today, Meron is competing for team MTN-Qhubeka in Europe along with his fellow countrymen Ferekalsi Debesay and Jani Tewelde. A busy season is awaiting him with this weekend’s Grand Prix Industria and Artigianato Giro della Toscana, the Semi Classic Cycling race in Frankfurt, the Tour di Picardie multi stage cycle road race in Spain, and Germany’s Bayern-Rundfahrt race until the end of May.
He has been married recently celebrating a huge Eritrean party – the kind of traditional wedding you do in Eritrea. The MTN-Qhubeka athlete became father to a newly born daughter just last month. ‘’My daughter was born on 25 March 2013 and I am happy to be a dad.’’ said Meron. He is now living in Lucca, Italy and says it’s quite expensive to live in Europe compared to Africa.
Asked about when the first Eritrean rider would win a stage in Tour de France, he says:
‘’I think it all depends on the opportunities the riders get. If it continues like this with lots of opportunities for Eritreans to race in Europe like Natnael Berhane winning stage 3 in the 2013 Tour of Turkey and taking the yellow jersey then the future looks bright. And if our athletes get the same opportunities as we have while they are young we could see this happening not later than 2020.’’
Received on Sat Apr 27 2013 - 23:07:20 EDT
