Giro d'Italia #21: 100th Giro d'Italia a resounding success for Africa's Team

Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka celebrate stage win and raising 100 bikes for girls

Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) won the 100th edition of the Giro d'Italia after eclipsing his GC rivals in the final individual time trial stage in Milan. Nairo Quintana (Movistar) finished 2nd overall and Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) was 3rd. Jos Van Emden (LottoNL-Jumbo) was the final stage victor.

For Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka, the final 29km individual time trial stage was never going to favour our 7 riders and so the day became one of celebrating our success over the past 3 weeks. There is much our African Team can be happy about with Omar Fraile's stage 11 victory the standout performance.

Our riders rode with positive intent on a daily basis, animating the race and it showed through all the various classifications. Both Daniel Teklehaimanot and Omar Fraile wore the king of the mountains jersey, with our Basque rider finishing 3rd overall in that competition in the end. As one of the top 3 breakaway riders of this years race, Teklehaimanot also managed to rack up enough points to win the intermediate sprint classification.

In total we were able to to finish inside the top 10 on 12 occasions and our young South African, Ryan Gibbons, taking 6 of those top 10 placings for us. In the overall classification, Jacques Janse van Rensburg was our best placed rider, finishing a credible 36th.

And finally, during this year's 100th Giro d'Italia our African Team raced to put 100 girls on bikes through our #Giro100bikes campaign.We are delighted to have been able to raise a total of 128 bikes for girls in Africa. Thank you to all who supported our cause and helped to change the lives of 128 girls forever.

Oliver Cookson - Sport Director
The 100th edition of the Giro d'Italia was incredibly special for our African Team. We went into the race with the objectives of being active in the race, use our riders according to their abilities on different stages and to get a stage win. We achieved everything we set out to do and more, with Omar getting the stage and then him and Daniel both wearing the climbers jersey. Tactically we had to manage our goals carefully considering what the GC riders might do each day but I think we got the best out of our riders at the Giro. We also raced the Giro with our campaign of funding 100 bikes for girls, we race for a cause and it was great to have also surpassed our goal of funding these 100 bikes. It was an incredibly beautiful edition of the Giro, both on the road and behind the scenes. Thank you to all the staff who contributed to the success of the team over the last 3 weeks.

Team Dimension Data For Qhubeka

Founded in 2007, Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka became the first ever African cycling team to gain a WorldTour license, in 2016. In the team’s palmares you can find a Milan-Sanremo victory, numerous stage wins at the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana, two Tour of Britain GC victories, and 36 National Championships. The team has bases in South Africa, the Netherlands and Italy. It’s also known as Africa’s Team due to its focus on helping African talents to the world stage of cycling. The team races to raise funds for the Qhubeka Charity to change lives with bicycles in Africa. #DoYourPart and gift a bicycle or part of a bicycle, by clicking here.

Qhubeka is an Nguni word that means “to progress”, “to move forward”. Qhubeka (qhubeka.org) partners with communities, public sector, private sector, and non-profit organisations to provide people with bicycles in return for working to improve their community, environment or school attendance. 

Dimension Data (dimensiondata.com) uses the power of technology to help organisations achieve great things in the digital era. As a member of the NTT Group, we accelerate our clients’ ambitions through digital infrastructure, hybrid cloud, workspaces for tomorrow, and cybersecurity. With a turnover of USD 7.5 billion, offices in 58 countries, and 31,000 employees, we deliver wherever our clients are, at every stage of their technology journey. We’re proud to be the Official Technology Partner of Amaury Sport Organisation, organiser of the Tour de France, and the title partner of the cycling team, Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka.

Learn more about the team at www.africasteam.com. 

All images attached to the press release can be used with the respective image credit in combination to this release.