Cycling history in Ethiopia

It is believed that the Italians introduced cycling to Ethiopia during the 1930’s. They also formed the first clubs in the country and organized competitions which were initially restricted to their local Italian community inhabitants in Addis Ababa, But later on included Ethiopians as well.

As bicycles became the main means of transportation, the number of riders grew and subsequently, the popularity of the sport.

Kassa Fedil, who won numerous tournaments during the 1938-1941 seasons, was said such a dominating force and extremely confident cyclist, that he would be eating breakfast at home while a competition is in progress, and would still beat the pack to win the tournament. Other top cyclists of the time included Mulugetta Kassa, Kassaye Resom and Tesfaye Made-Micheal.

But following liberation from the Italian occupation, the sport of cycling, for some strange reason, became dormant for the next ten years and it wasn’t until 1951 thanks to the great Ferede Kassa, that member of the Cycling Organizing committee, which held several tournaments around the piazza and old post office area.

In the 1956 Melbourne Olympics Geremew Denboba finished 24^th which was a great accomplishment for an African cyclist at that time. He lead the first eight of the eleven rounds competition and could have done better had it not been for lack of experience and tactical known how four years later in Rome, a matured and much more improved Geremew, saw his opportunity slip by after he fell and broke his elbow and had to withdraw from the competition.

In 1960, the Ethiopian Cycling Federation’s annual budget was only $US 500.00.  The lack of needed fund made it thus impossible for the federation to organize annual tournaments. The only competitions that existed were the ones between the Addis Ababa and Asmara teams to select the national team which competed in the Olympic preliminary tournaments.

In 1973, Tekeste Woldu “Jegnti” won gold in both the individual and team competitions at the 2^nd all Africa Games in Lagos Nigeria.

The Sport of cycling enjoyed tremendous growth and popularity during the 1980s but with the soaring bike cost ($US 4000 or 32000 birr a piece) and devaluation of the Ethiopian birr ($US = 2.07 birr in the 80s compared to $US 1= 17.10 birr currently) and the meager 168000 birr ($US 20,750) annual budget of the federation, cycling has fallen on hard times.

But as we have observed the country still has good and promising cyclists and with better preparation and organization proper training and financial backing by both investors and sponsors, Ethiopian cycling could retain its old glory back.