Namibian cyclist in the male road race at the Olympic Games, Tristan de Lange said competing at the event on Saturday taught him a number of things that he will apply in his cycling career.
The rescheduled 2020 Olympic Games are currently underway in Tokyo, Japan where team Namibia is competing in five different sport codes – cycling (road and mountain bike), boxing, athletics, swimming (marathon) and rowing.
The 24-year-old Namibian who is the current African Champion in Mountain Bike, and is a replacement for Dan Craven in the road race after the veteran cyclist tested positive for COVID-19, told Nampa on Saturday that being at the Olympics is a massive experience for him.
“This was one of my big days. Apart from it being my Olympic debut, it was also my debut doing road racing at this level. I have only raced with a road bike at the African Games and the Commonwealth Games so this was new with a lot of new faces, strategies and tactics that can be implemented next time,” De Lange said.
The cyclist added that he wished he had more than a week to prepare for the games.
“I did not have a lot of mental preparation but I hope next time I will have more time to prepare. In today’s race I learned a lot and I can call myself a Namibian Olympian,” said De Lange who added that he was lucky to have good legs and the confidence on his road bike despite him being a mountain biker.
The young cyclist who was pulled out of the race after trailing behind by the ‘broom wagon’ with 122 kilometres (km) to go of the 234km race, after being unable to make it to the finish line within the permitted time stated that he is happy to have ridden for his country at a global competition as it put him and the country on the map.
Axel Thiessen, the president of the Namibia Cycling Federation told this agency on Saturday that De Lange did Namibia proud at the Olympics.
“It was one of the most exciting road races I have watched in a long time. Tristan rode with over 100 professional cyclists that rode in the Tour de France in the last three weeks. What is important at the moment is we need to be proud that Namibia is one of the few African countries that participate at international scenes,” Thiessen said.
He added that going forward as a country and from the federation’s side, is to put the structures in place in grooming cyclists from an early age so that come the next Olympics in France they will be able to compete at their utmost best.
Source: Namibia Press Agency
