A look at the South African road cycling team that has been selected to compete at the Commonwealth Games in India in October makes it evident that Doug Ryder and the brain trust of MTN-Energade must be doing something right.  

No fewer than five of the thirteen member SA squad is MTN-Energade riders.  

Furthermore, one should not forget that Daryl Impey, as a youngster, did his apprenticeship at MTN-Energade, and so did Jay Thomson.  It should also be remembered that Cherise Taylor rode for the ‘yellow team’ when she represented South Africa at the Olympic Games in Beijing.  

Ryder certainly deserves credit for the fact that his riders form the backbone of the national team. He has been advocating for a long time the importance of giving South African riders ample opportunity to compete internationally and he has been going out of his way to make it happen.  

It is also important to note that women’s cycling is one of Ryder’s passions. He has stated on numerous occasions that he believes it will be a female rider who will win South Africa’s first medal since 1992 at a senior World Championship or at the Olympic Games.  

And it is certainly beginning to look as if Ryder’s prediction might just come true during the Commonwealth Games, especially if one considers Carla Swart’s recent results. She definitely does not hesitate to take on the world’s best.  

She proved that recently by finishing 8th at the Unive Ronde van Drenthe World Cup in the Netherlands.  

During that race she not only outrode Brittain’s Nicole Cooke, current Olympic and World Champion, but she also beat Marianne Vos from the Netherlands, the current leader in the World Cup series and former Olympic and World Champion.  

In the Ronde van Vlaanderen, also a World Cup race, Swart again beat Cooke to finish 18th.   

Swart also impressed in the Tour de L’Aude (known as the women’s version of the Tour de France) where she managed to finish 18th overall.  She also finished 4th in one of the stages, and achieved two more top-ten positions. That took some doing, especially because the ‘who’s who’ of international women riders competed in the Tour.  

Next month the female riders will be off to France to prepare for the Commonwealth Games and the World Championship. They will compete in the 9 day Route de France from 7-15 August and subsequently, on 21 August, in the French World Cup race, the GP Plouay-Bretagne.  

Marissa van der Merwe, Robyn de Groot, Christoff van Heerden and Jaco Venter are the other MTN-riders who were selected for the Commonwealth Games Team.