American rider Kiel Reijnen wins prologue stage of the Tour of Rwanda 2011 – Cycling Update
Type 1-Sanofi Team’s Kiel Reijnen returned to racing after a long term injury and demonstrated a stunning performance in the prologue stage of the Tour of Rwanda 2011 on Sunday, November 20.
The race started and ended in Kigali. The 25-year-old American cyclist won with an average speed of 52 km/h and set the fastest time of 4 minutes and 22.84 seconds to cover the time trial distance of 3.8 kilometres.
After winning the stage, Reijnen told the media, "To win today was important for me, to show my thanks to Team Type 1-Sanofi for standing by when I couldn´t even ride my bike for an hour”.
Previously, Kiel joined the Jelly Belly Team in 2008 as a trainee and secured the fifth place in a stage of Tour of Hainan, along with grabbing the overall fifth place.
In 2009 he joined the U.S Continental team. Kiel won the opening stage of the Tour of Thailand and also took the overall standing.
Team Type 1-Sanofi riders rode very well throughout the race. Kiel’s teammate, Joseph Rosskopf, was in the runner-up’s spot, 7.43 seconds down to the American.
Tyler Magner was in the third place with a difference of 10.1 seconds.
The champion of Rwanda, Adrien Niyonshuti (Team MTN Qhubeka) was in a good form and tried his best to beat the Type 1-Sanofi riders but was unable to catch them and landed in the fourth place, with a difference of 13.16 seconds.
He added, "This course is hard and hilly every day, and the teams here are motivated to do well. We´ll have our hands full defending against the South African and Ethiopian squads, and the local Rwanda team has some really strong guys with an entire country
pulling for them".
Alem Abebe (Ethiopia National Team) also showed a good performance and finished sixth, with a difference of 16.74 seconds, ahead of Dylan Girdlestone (Team MTN Qhubeka) and Alexey Shmidt (Team Type 1-Sanofi).
Nicodem Habiyambere (Rwanda Karisimbi), Innocent Uwamungu (Rwanda Akagera) and Karel Pattyn (Flanders Avia Cycling Team) were in the ninth, tenth and eleventh place, respectively.
Team Type 1-Sanofi also took the overall team standing, with a timing of 13 minutes and 24 seconds ahead of MTN Qhubeka and Ethiopia National Team.
The next stage will start in Kigali and finish in Rwamagana, where all the cyclists will cover a distance of 45km. The race is divided into eight stages and the final stage will end in Kigali.
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