Tim Lewis - Land of Second Chances: The Impossible Rise of Rwandas Cycling Team

PRAISE FOR
LAND OF SECOND CHANCES

BY TIM LEWIS

This is a book about Rwanda. Its a book about cycling. But its not, in the end, a book about Rwandan cycling.... The book is good on culture shock... [and] also opens up the world of professional cycling.

The Spectator

The incredible story of road cycling in Rwanda, Land of Second Chances is a tale that quite brilliantly portrays the power of sport to effect change.

Huffington Post

Tim Lewiss fascinating story of Rwandan cycling isnt a typical rags to riches, triumph against adversity tale.... This is also a story about the potential of African cycling and its undoubted capacity to change lives.

The Guardian

Journalist Tim Lewiss Land of Second Chances is not a story simply of personal dedication overcoming the odds.... Team Rwandas story could have been edited into an uplifting tale of unlikely success, with Niyonshutis Olympic appearance as the rousing finale. Instead this is a more complicated, darker, account.

Financial Times

The race is on to find Africas first black world-class cyclist. Land of Second Chances is an important chronicle of just some of the early stages of that race. Its not just a book about what has happened in the past, its a book about what is just around the corner for cycling. A fantastic read.

Podium Caf

This is not a book solely about cycling. It is a book that combines hope with tragedy and success with failure. But ultimately its a book that holds a mirror to our Western sporting ideals. Whether you find that reflection disturbing or otherwise depends greatly on the width of your perspective.

The Washing Machine Post

Copyright 2013 by Tim Lewis

First published by Yellow Jersey, an imprint of the Random House Group Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-937715-20-5 (pbk.); ISBN 978-1-937716-47-9 (e-book)

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Interior design by Vicki Hopewell
Composition by Anita Koury

Version 3.1

For my parents

CONTENTS

You cant know where youre going unless you know where youve come from. RWANDAN PROVERB

There had been a lot of odd moments in Adrien Niyonshutis life recently. Most of them had started when a group of Americans had arrived in Rwanda in 2006 and put on a bicycle race in September. Adrien had won, and, as his prize, he had been allowed to keep the mountain bike he had borrowed from the visitors for the event. It was a Schwinn, nothing special by Western standards, but it was exponentially more advanced than anything that little, landlocked Rwandaabout the size of Massachusetts but with twice as many inhabitantshad ever seen. Adrien actually didnt ride it very much. He was nineteen years old, and no one else in the country had a mountain bike, so it was dull on his own. But the bike was definitely the start of something.

From this point on, new experiences started arriving rapidly for Adrien. Not long after, he flew on an airplane for the first time. In South Africa, he slept on a bed between sheets, after a couple of nights of just lying on the top because he did not dare to disturb them. He learned to use flush toilets, again after some initial confusion. He raced on his road bike against Lance Armstrong. He saw snow for the first time, high in the Colorado Rockies.

But for those who have followed Adriens life for a few years, one Friday lunchtime in London in August 2012 set a new bar for incongruity. The Criterion Theatre, a Victorian-era West End playhouse that usually hosts a long-running production of The 39 Steps, had been commandeered for a salon called When Clive Met Adrien. Adrien was Adrien, who in exactly forty-eight hours would become the first Rwandan to compete in the mens mountain bike event at the Olympic Games. Clive was Clive Owen, the glowering British film star who had a Golden Globe and a BAFTA award on his shelves at home.

Adrien knew next to nothing about Clive, but it quickly emerged that Clive knew pretty much everything about Adrien. The actor strode on stage wearing a crisp slate-gray suit and open-necked shirt, and immediately broached the question wed all been chewing on: What was the guy from Closer and Children of Men doing hosting a talk with a Rwandan cyclist? He was, he explained, an ambassador for the Aegis Trust, a UK-based charity that raises awareness of genocide and has particularly strong links with Rwanda. More than that, though, Clive was a sports fan.

There are thousands of athletes who have come here to compete in the Olympic Games, and all of them will have extraordinary stories of dedication and commitment to their sport, he said, glancing at diligently prepared notes. But I really think that Adrien Niyonshutis story is one of the most extraordinary.

Adrien was seven years old during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when at least 800,000 of his compatriotsone in ten of the populationwere slaughtered in a hundred days. He escaped death only by running and hiding from the Hutu mobs that were assigned to kill every last Tutsi. Sixty members of his family, including six of his siblings, were brutally hacked down in those three months.

But now, just two days before the biggest moment of Adriens life, wasnt a time to dwell on those tales of horror. The week before, Adrien had carried his countrys flag at the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, nervously but proudly leading a delegation of seven athletes. And, as he often said, one of his dreams was that cycling would finally give the world a reference point for Rwanda that was not the genocide.

At this moment, Adrien joined Clive on the stage. He was a quiet, gentle presence, and he walked stiffly, as though he had forgotten to remove the coat hanger from his clothes. He was not quite five and a half feet tall and slim, full of sharp angles. His hair was shaved to a stubble, as Rwandan men invariably have it, and he had finely drawn features with precipitous cheekbones. He wore a Team Rwanda sleeveless jacket in the national colors of sky blue, green, and yellow, black track-suit trousers, and running shoes. He didnt look out at the audience once as he took his seat.

Adriens voice was soft, and he spoke rapidly; the audience leaned forward as one to catch what he said. He ran through the creation of Team Rwanda, the racing squad that had been formed not long after he won that first race in 2006. It started with five riders but in five years had grown to nearly twenty; the country now had its own professional road race, the weeklong Tour of Rwanda, and had become one of the strongest cycling nations in all of Africa. The inspiration for the project initially had come from a Californian named Tom Ritchey, one of the inventors of the mountain bike back in the late 1970s. It had then been taken on and knocked into shape by a former professional road racer named Jonathan BoyerJock to all who knew himwho in 1981 had become the first American to ride the Tour de France. Both men had complicatedsome would say compromisedreasons for becoming involved in Rwanda.