Ever since Robert Hunter won a stage during the 2007 Tour de France and Daryl Impey got to wear the coveted yellow jersey during the 2013 Tour young cyclists in South Africa realised that there should be no limitations to their dreams.

Hunter and Impey are genuinely two of the original trailblazers of South African cycling. Their sacrifices and heroics played a significant role to ensure that over the last few years there had hardly been a major international cycle tour in which South Africans were not competing.

However, for every young South African cyclist who gets to compete with the world’s best, there are at least two more that failed to fulfil their real potential because of a lack of opportunities.

It is a statistic that has been worrying Hein Badenhorst, an avid former cyclist at Tuks who has worked with Team Dimension coaching their continental riders for a few years.

That is why Badenhorst has approached the TuksSport High School to form a partnership. The aim is to identify and develop young talented riders from an early age. If he had his way, he would like to start working with riders from the age of 14 as there is truth in the concept of it takes 10 000 hours before any athlete can perform at his best.

Badenhorst is so serious about ensuring that the young cyclists get the best possible coaching that he has convinced Trevor Court, who coached at Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka (formerly Team MTN-Qhubeka) for the past seven years to assist him. He will be actively involved from January next year.

"With every training session, there will be specific goals that the riders will need to achieve. Just getting on bicycle and ride will never be good enough.

“I am very excited for this program to help develop the next generation of professional cyclists in South Africa. We aim to focus our program on road cycling. However, we will accommodate mountain bikers in our program. Apart from ensuring quality coaching, we want the riders also to excel in their studies. The vision is to see promising athletes graduate high school and move straight into international racing programs we are partnering with. That is why we chose to partner with TuksSport High School,” explained Badenhorst.

 “We will also be partnering with the High-Performance Centre as it adds incredible value to our program. Their world-class facilities will serve as the base of our team. It goes with a support structure of physiotherapists, sports scientists and medical staff. The riders will continuously be monitored, and the data be used for cycling specific research at the university.

“The program is open to all high school athletes and will require an application and an interview process. There will be ten spots available in the first year."   Click here for the press release.

More information will be made available upon request. For further information, please contact Hein Badenhorst on [email protected]