‘We would like the last World Championships to have a legacy’ – Rwanda aiming for a spot on the WorldTour calendar in 2027

In the wake of the 2025 UCI Road World Championships in Rwanda, could the African nation be getting its own WorldTour race in the near future?

That’s what the Rwandan Cycling Federation (RCF) is hoping for, with 2027 the aim for a new race to be set up.

The RCF and the UCI are reportedly working together to set up a new race in the coming seasons to capitalise on the success of Africa’s first World Championships, according to a report by La Dernière Heure.

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Rwanda already hosts one major cycling event in the form of the Tour du Rwanda, which has run since 2009. Joseph Blackmore (Israel-Premier Tech) and Fabien Doubey (TotalEnergies) won the two most recent editions of the 2.1 stage race, which has attracted various European teams in recent years.

RCF president Samson Ndayishimiye told La Derniere Heure that the federation wants the Rwanda Worlds to have a lasting legacy in the country and the sport.

“We would like the last World Championships to have a legacy and are currently looking at the best way to do things,” he said.

“We need to look at the best date and race format to attract a top-class field, as the idea would be to aim for a higher category than the Tour of Rwanda, which we are still determined to maintain and is already scheduled for 2026.”

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Ndayishimiye said the new race could be included in the 2027 cycling calendar, hopefully as an addition to the UCI WorldTour, though there was no estimate yet for when the race would fit into the schedule.

“There is a shared desire to do this, but we want to analyse the situation calmly in order to make the right choices,” he said.

“We haven’t set ourselves a strict deadline, but the project could come to fruition in 2027.”