Dubai: The UAE Cycling Federation (UAE CF) has embarked on a project to ensure the best of their young talent get a look-in with the professional teams and race across the world in the near future.
Osama Al Shafar, President of the UAE CF, told Gulf News: “We have been monitoring a few of our young riders and the names of those identified to be part of international professional teams will be revealed shortly.”
“After four years of hosting one of the world’s best races on the UCI circuit, we felt the need to go one step further and see how initiatives can assist us in pushing forward a developmental programme that will be beneficial for all involved. We have nearly made up our minds on who will travel, but we are awaiting final details before announcing the names,” he added.
Yousuf Mirza is currently the only cyclist from the UAE who is racing with a professional UCI WorldTeam after being announced as one of the riders for the UAE Abu Dhabi Team in 2017. Mirza has a list of achievements in cycling for the UAE, with his best moment coming with a silver medal at the 2015 Asian Cycling Championships and an automatic qualifying for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games.
“The plan is to have more riders from the UAE make that transition from being amateurs to being part of a professional set-up with teams. Over the past four years we have had cyclists from the UAE taking part in the Dubai Tour, and they have all been showing marked improvements with each race. This is bound to happen as they get an opportunity to be alongside the professionals. The immediate result has been that the UAE is by far the best cycling team at races within the region. But now we need to take the next step and push these young riders in a position that will see them at a higher level of performance,” Al Shafar noted.
“Now, it is about time that we have some younger riders joining Yousuf Mirza and feeding off him and his experience. We are in the final stages of announcing names. It may be at least two or three who will make the next step of their career as pro cyclists,” he added.
Al Shafar also promised that enough attention is being paid to the grassroots as well. “The plan is to continue doing what we have been doing since the past few years. We will continue in our efforts to put the UAE up on the world cycling map. Very soon you will have young riders who will be all over the globe flying the UAE flag,” the official stressed.
The UAE has been one of the major cycle hubs in the region with the RTA recently adding another 32km cycling track covering the three residential districts of Mushrif, Mirdiff and Al Khawaneej. This addition has seen the network of cycling tracks go up to more than 250km while take the emirate closer to its goal of 500km by 2021.
“It’s a perfect thing to do. Government bodies like the RTA have further helped us in taking the sport to a general audience and such initiatives can only help us build a team for the future,” Al Shafar added.
