Welcome to the HQ of the only professional African cycling team, MTN-Qhubeka. In this headquarter we will not only keep you updated on our progress towards domination of the world with African cycling, we have also given our riders the opportunity to state their feelings. Our aims are to reach the WorldTour within 2 years and to have a squad that for at least 75% of Africans.

One of our namegivers, Qhubeka, is responsible for promoting cycling in South Africa. Since 2004 it has distributed tens of thousands of bikes to children, who have seen their lives easened up a lot. By promoting Qhubeka through our name we want to give this great company even more publicity for the fantastic work it does, and we hope that its projects will expand to all of Africa on a very short term. https://qhubeka.org/givehope/

We are also very proud we can help the UCI in its development of global talent by signing young, promising talents. For us this has ensured us so far of 8 different riders. Some of them already raced for us last season, but didn't become a huge success. Of our 2013 riders we have resigned two of our six riders who were part of the program, namely the German Josef Hintermüller and the Tunisian Marouane Shaqif. Furthermore, for this season we have managed to sign two young Africans, the Nigerian sprinter Abasi Abundi, currently aged 23, and South African rouleur Husani Mashaba, aged 18. More information on the riders who are part of this program can be found further down, and the riders themselves will also give updates on their development.

The team itself was founded in 2007 and reached the status of UCI Continental team one year later. Until 2012 the team kept its continental status, developing riders such as Daryl Impey, now riding for Orica-GreenEdge, and Reinardt Janse van Rensburg, who after one year at the Dutch WorldTour team Argos-Shimano, has decided to return to the team for the 2014 season.
In 2013 the first non-Africans since 2009 (when Lars Teutenberg rode for the team) were signed, and the step was made to the ProContinental division, meaning MTN-Qhubeka became the first ever African professional cycling team.

In 2013 many wildcards for WorldTour races were already handed out to us. The first highlight for us was Gerald Ciolek's victory in the Tirreno-Adriatico, but his best performance for us was in our first ever Grand Tour, the Vuelta a Espanã. There we also brought him as our lead sprinter. He delivered his role and, above our expectation he won two mass sprints in a row! For more articles on last year, our archive is freely available to anyone interested

For the 2014 season, 5 non-African riders and one African were ditched, and as replacements we got 7 Africans, including the South African legend Robert Hunter and possibly Africa's greatest stage racing talent, Eritrean Merhawi Kudus, and one experienced German, Linus Gerdemann, who already wore yellow once in the Tour. This season MTN is aiming to ride two grand tours, with hopefully the greatest of them all, the Tour de France included among them.

We hope you enjoy reading our HQ and that you support Qhubeka's great work.

Jan de Boer,
Manager of MTN-Qhubeka Cycling Team

In:
Abasi Abundi (CCC)
John-Lee Augustyn (Free Agent)
Natnael Berhane (Europcar)
Linus Gerdemann (Free Agent)
Robert Hunter (Garmin)
Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (Argos)
Merhawi Kudus (Neo)
Husani Mashaba (Neo)
Yonas Tekeste (Neo)

Out:
Luke Bryan (Retirement)
Mario Guido (Colombia)
Dave Kennedy (Retirement)
Kristian Sbaragli (Movistar)
Johnny Schmidt (Retirement)
Johann van Zyl (Free Agent)

Now all custom riders reserved a post (on alphabetic order, coincidentally(?)), this HQ is now open for comments. It won't be taken into use until the end of the transfer season, but the squad will be updated if possible.
This also is a good moment to tell about the new banner. The great British artist the_hoyle is responsible for this great work, which shows our dedication to African cycling.

As of now the 2014 squad for MTN-Qhubeka has been finalized. No more incoming offers will be accepted. With these 30 riders, including our two latest signings from the free agent market, in our team we hope to be able to achieve our goals. We feel we have a good mix between experienced riders and young talents, whom we hope will develop throughout the seasons to make Africa the world's leading cycling continent. A more elaborate team presentation, with all our riders presented individually will follow later on.

@Ollfardh: Thanks!
@All readers: Sorry for the lengthy-ish post, that's what happens when you need to introduce 30 riders

Welcome to the 2014 MTN-Qhubeka team presentation. We are looking forward to the 2014 season already, and we hope you do as well! We have no ambitions of immediate promotion yet, but our primary goals are to get African cycling promoted and get African talent developed.

For our presentation we immediately start out with our key riders for this season. We are proud to announce we are able to ride around with 3 leaders for this season. Our first leader is Nigerian, and his name, as you may have guessed is Abasi Abundi. He has an incredible final shot to the line and whenever the route is flat he will aim on sprinting for victory. The races he will focus on therefore mainly include sprint routes. At his young age we hope to see him develop even further.

Our second leader is not African, but already has a past at this team. His name is Gerald Ciolek and this year is his second for MTN. Last year was already a very successful season for him at this team, with successes such as two consecutive stage wins in La Vuelta. For this season, he'll once again lead a grand tour to go stage hunting, and we are confident he might do even better than last season.

And finally, we can present another German leader, who also rode for us in 2013. His name is Josef Hintermüller. He is relatively inexperienced at the pros, but he nevertheless performed fairly well in his first season. His Vuelta was disappointing, but we are confident he can make the step up this season towards a good grand tour as well.

You can't have leaders without support, and therefore each rider will have his help in races Our first key domestique is Merhawi Kudus. The young Eritrean is a good climber, as he proved in many races in the u23 category. Stepping up to professional cycling was logical, and where else to go than the African team MTN-Qhubeka. This season he'll get some freedom of his own, but will mainly help Josef.

Second back-up in this list is Louis Meintjes. The young South African already showed his talent with many podium places and several top-10s in la Vuelta. He has grown on the short hills, and should be very useful as a back-up leader for Josef.

Finally, our third person of this category is the Tunisian Marouane Shaqif. He already showed his talent with several top-10s in time trials and he should be able to get some significant growth this season, in order to get him as a leading rider for the future.

We start out in this category with one of our signings, Eritrean Natnael Berhane. He's part of our young core, but has already got some good experience, last year at Europcar. This season he'll mainly try to help in the mountains.

Robert Hunter is by far our most experienced rider. He has been a bit on the decline for the last years, but with his palmares and experience we still are confident he can prove to be a very useful rider for the rest of the team.

Reinardt Janse van Rensburg also deserves a place here. He already rode for us in 2011 and 2012, and after a year in the WorldTour for Argos, he has rejoined us for 2014. Being able to survive some serious ascents he should be able to support many riders until the very end, or maybe go for himself.

Sergio Pardilla should get a mention in this category. At the age of 29 he is our second oldest rider. The Spaniard has shown some good climbing results in the past, including in grand tours, and should thus be of much value in our climbing squad.

Finally, Andreas Stauff is part of this category. As a good friend of Gerald Ciolek and a rider with experience in the WorldTour he will try to stick with our leaders and if necessary help out on the flat parts of the race.

With a very low average age not many young riders can be called workers. Our limit is drawn at 1989 as last year for talents. First in the list of domestiques is a new signing. John-Lee Augustyn is, especially for someone his age, very experienced, having ridden many top-level races including the Tour de France. He'll support our climbers.

Freqalsi Debesay is one of our many African riders. He can survive hills fairly well and should be very useful in earlier parts of races.

Jacques Janse van Rensburg is one of the many riders with a past here as well. He can climb fairly well, which he saw rewarded with a place in La Vuelta last season. He hopes to ride similar this season.

Ignatas Konovalovas is once again a rider with experience at the WorldTour level. On his palmares we find a Giro stage win. As a good time trialist we count on him for flat stages and TTTs.

Adrien Niyonshuti is not from one of the main countries which shine in cycling, but from Rwanda. In his home country he did very well, and we think he can be very useful in Europe for us again.

Martin Reimer, aged 26, also has a large experience. His biggest success, the German title, hasn't been repeated yet, but he has shown he has a good eye for the break and is capable of doing shitloads of work for the team as well.

Meron Russom, one of our 6 Eritreans, is not the most experienced. However, he has shown to be able to climb fairly well and he should be valuable in any stage with rising roads.

Jay Robert Thomson is another valuable rider on the flat roads. He doesn't mind riding hills, but he's very strong on his own on flat sections and should therefore be valuable in the sprint train.

Jacobus Venter is another solid rider for our climber squad. He is not only capable of riding over rising roads, he also is good against the clock. He should all in all be a very valuable worker for the team.

And the final in this list is Martin Wesemann. The experienced South African is reaching the age of 30 this season, which makes him the third oldest rider of the team. He is a very useful all-round domestique, who should be helpful in most races.

What's a team without young talents? Well, here at MTN we've got plenty. First up is double Ethiopian champion Tsgabu Grmay. He has grown a lot the last year and should be a very strong helper for stage races, with a large progression margin. We have high hopes of him this season.

Songezo Jim is one of South Africa's large talent pool. He's a good climber and should in the smaller races be helpful. He'll probably grow further this season, and we hope to see him a lot.

Husani Mashaba is our team's youngest rider, being only 18 years young at the start of the season. He's a very talented fighter who we hope to see shining in breakaways many times. If not, he'll have a big value in the sprint trains.

Bradley Potgieter is the next African talent. He has been given experience to ride in WorldTour races, and immediately showed his fighting spirit. This season we hope, and expect, to see even more of him.

Youcef Reguigui is an Algerian, not the world's foremost cycling nation. He is a good talent though, and has shown some serious sprint power, which we hope will prove useful this season.

Yonas Tekeste was our last signing for this season. The young Eritrean is probably the least known rider of our team, but he proved himself worthy of a place for this season after good results at the juniors. Being only 18 years old we foresee a large progressive margin for him.

And our last rider of all is Jani Tewelde, another Eritrean. He's turning 24 this year, a good age for a breakthrough. He'll need to show some development, but if it's like last year his time will come.

And with Jani Tewelde we conclude our 2014 rider presentation. As you may have noticed already our new kit has been leaked out, but now we can say this is what the official 2014 MTN-Qhubeka shirt will look like.

We hope we can get more publicity for Qhubeka by using this kit and we hope you will all enjoy our shirt and team for next season. Thank you all for your attention.

@nacho: I hope for more successes than my sprinters only though
@SH: Thanks! I'm glad you like it
@JA13: I don't hope so either

Although we are aware that not everyone has made his/her announcements of schedules yet, I'm pleased to present you our definitive calendar for the month of January, which, just like last season, will consist of two races.

First up is a, for us, quite important race. You probably already thought of the only African race on the calendar, and if you did, well done, as indeed we'll start our season in Africa once again. Any goals or squad announcements for this race will happen later on, when the time is right.

Our other race in January will, just like last season, be the Tour de San Luis. After we almost reached top-10 last year despite massive time losses in the first stage we are confident we can pick up a better result this year. Just like Gabon, we will not reveal anything about this race yet in terms of goals and squad.

Now the wildcards for the first season part have been announced we're pleased to tell you we have been given the possibility to race at 12 races this season. In order of calendar it will consist of the following: Tour de Gabon, Tour de San Luis, Tour of Qatar, Tour of Oman, Tour de Langkawi, Clasica de Almeria, Strade Bianchi, Roma Maxima, our two WT-races Tirreno-Adriatico and Milano - San Remo and finally the Critérium International and Volta Limburg Classic.

For these races we will have 6 goals. 3 of them will be defined by us, and three will be decided by an objective third party. The so-called countered goals will be added as soon as they are announced.
Easy own goal: Top-10 Tour de San Luis
Medium own goal: Stage win Tour de Gabon
Hard own goal: Win Clasica de Almería
Easy countered goal:
Medium countered goal:
Hard countered goal:

And finally, we have wildcard news on our other applications. Unfortunately our application for the Giro has been turned down, but will be given if nobody else applies, and our application for the Vuelta has, just like last year, been accepted. Therefore we can already be sure of at least one Grand Tour again this year.

Easy own goal: Top-10 Tour de San Luis
Medium own goal: Stage win Tour de Gabon
Hard own goal: Win Clasica de Almería
Easy countered goal: Top-10 Tour of Oman
Medium countered goal: Stage win Qatar
Hard countered goal: Top-3 Milano-San Remo