WORLDS OF HOPE WORLDS OF HURT

The Kigali Worlds are a milestone for African cycling but Rwanda's human rights record could prove their millstone.

- Dan Challis

When David Lappartient was first elected as UCI President in 2017, he vowed to bring the road World Championships to Africa for the first time. Eight years later, it's happening. The 2025 Worlds in Kigali, Rwanda, has been hailed as a breakthrough moment for the globalisation of the sport and a catalyst for the development of African cycling. Lappartient said that witnessing an African Worlds was his “dream”, and the UCI has invested heavily in the development of cycling on the continent in recent years, hoping to see a stream of riders move up the sporting ladder, emulating the likes of Biniam Girmay and Kim Le Court-Pienaar.

What cannot be ignored, however, is Rwanda’s history of human rights abuses and its role in a brutal conflict in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as well as organisational hurdles for the championships. Will the Kigali Worlds be Lappartient’s dream come true, or could it be something more akin to a nightmare?

In January, Rwanda hit the headlines after fighting broke out in eastern DRC between Rwandan-backed rebel group M23 and the Congolese military. In the following months, M23 took control of large parts of the provinces of North and South Kivu. The DRC’s prime minister Judith Tuluka Suminwa has stated that approximately 7,000 people, including combatants and civilians, have been killed in the eastern conflict since January 2025. Millions of people have been displaced since the start of the year, while reports from human rights organisations claim that war crimes have been carried out, including torture, attacks on displacement camps and forced deportations.