Drikus Coetzee of Namibia and Xaveline Nirere of Rwanda won the Pupkewitz Megabuild Tour de Windhoek, which finished in Windhoek yesterday.
In the men's tour, Coetzee of Team Hollard Elite finished comfortably ahead of Christiaan Janse van Rensburg of Cymot Racing Team and Roger Suren of Team Mannie's Bike Mecca, while in the women's tour, Nirere of Team Amani demolished the rest of the field to win by close to 10 minutes.
The women's tour was also the first-ever UCI-accredited Confederation of Africa Cycling (CAC) women's tour that Namibia had hosted and enabled cyclists to acquire International Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) ranking points.
In the men's tour, Coetzee built up a 34-second lead over Suren after the third stage on Saturday and maintained it till the end as both cyclists finished in the leading bunch in yesterday's final stage.
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It was the third time that Coetzee had won the Tour de Windhoek following previous victories in 2020 and 2023, and he said it went very well.
"Today's stage went very well. I expected a bit more of a challenge, attack-wise from our rivals to be honest, but they didn't come. I think there was one attack, maybe 10 km from the finish, but that was it. So in general, it was a very good day. I felt extremely good today, so I was up for a good day, but I didn't need to ride aggressively," he said.
"It's always good for a Namibian to win the Tour de Windhoek, and to be honest I didn't expect it because I'm preparing for Badlands 800 km ultra race in Spain at the end of the month," he added.
"I'm very happy with the result, and I need to thank my team yesterday. I had a bit of an off day, but they paced the whole day and took me all the way to the climb to the last six kilometres, and then today again, they were also just controlling the race. So it was a team effort, and we Hollard boys did very well, and I can say it was a combined effort and not a solo effort by me," he said.
Nirere, meanwhile, dominated the women's tour, following an awesome ride on the 76km Kupferberg road race third stage on Saturday. She won that stage by more than 10 minutes and then managed to finish in the leading bunch yesterday to maintain her huge lead till the end.
Nirere said she was elated to win the tour.
"I'm very excited to win this tour - it was not easy. We put all our effort in to try and maintain our distance and keep the yellow jersey. Today was hard and they pushed us all the way and won the sprint, but we did well and I want to thank my teammates," she said.
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"Yesterday I broke away at around 10 km - I pushed hard and tried to open a big gap, so I used a lot of power. Today I didn't use much power but I stayed in the leading peloton and tried to go if some guys made a breakaway because I wanted to take the jersey home," she added.
"This title is very important for me and will boost my career. In September, we will host the Africa Championships in Rwanda and I'm so excited because it's my home, and I'll try my best to win," she said.
Namibia's former professional cyclist Dan Craven, who served as the race director said it was a great tour.
"This was just the second UCI women's tour to ever happen in Africa, and the NCF organising committee put on an amazing show. There was so much work that went into this, but like Axel (Theissen - NCF vice president) said, 'this is a group of people you can run a company with - there was so much good energy.
"It was a lot of hard work, and there were a lot of things that we had to learn, so it was a huge learning curve, but everyone adapted on the run and did amazing jobs," he added.
Theissen said he was very proud of the organising committee and what they achieved.
"We had cyclists from 12 nations competing here, and we've never had that before. The biggest accolade we got and what makes me very proud about the team is that the riders and team captains of the visiting teams came to us and said, 'wow, you did an amazing job and we would love to come back,' so I'm extremely grateful," he said.
