Professional Cyclist Tsgabu Grmay Achieves Remarkable Results in Tour de France 2017

Tigrai Online, July 16, 2017

Ethiopian Professional Cyclist Tsgabu Geberemariam Grmay achieved remarkable results today July 16, 2017 in the Tour de France 2017 stage 15 by ranking 23rd out of 198 riders on a 189.5 Km distance. This is not an easy feat to achieve even by the more experienced cyclists standard.

For comparison, about two weeks ago on July 1, 2017 at stage one he ranked 108. The Cycling scoring and ranking system is a bit complicated because the ranking is based on daily and weekly bases also the cyclists work as a group for their team and they have a captain.

Tsgabu who is 25 years old originally from city of Mekelle, the capital city of Tigrai State has been steadily climbing the ranks of professional cycling.

We would have appreciated if the media outlets owned by the federal government to give this amazing Ethiopian athlete a little bit attention, but it looks like many of them are allergic to anything positive coming out of Tigrai. We noticed many settled but persistence patterns of neglect by the government media regarding Tigrai. For instance whenever they display an image to represent the historical city of Axum they use the broken and fallen down stele instead of the two standing in the city. We can list hundreds of observations but what is the point. After all as long as we are under one flag and one constitution, every artifact wherever it might be located or every athlete which region they might come from, they all belong to all of us the Ethiopians, so we say this childish game by some to leave out the people of Tigrai and their achievements should be stopped once and for all.

Tsgabu is making his country proud by competing in cycling which is not common in most of the Ethiopian athletes. If he continues like this for a while he might have a chance to go all the way to the top of the Tour de France and other international professional cycling competitions.

If properly nurtured, financed, trained and well attended Ethiopia can produce many athletes in many sports other than running.

Stage 15 - Tour de France 2017

About Tsgabu Grmay

Tsgabu Grmay was born in 1991 in the capital city of Tigrai state Mekelle in Northern Ethiopia. Tsabu Grmay started cycling in 2008 with his brother and father. He began competing in local races, winning his first event. Encouraged, he joined his brother’s team, the Trans Ethiopia Team, and started racing regularly, progressing from a B-level junior to A-level racing in 2009. When he began outperforming his older brother, he realised that he had the potential to compete at a higher level. He married his beautiful wife in 2016.

Follow his progress here: http://www.procyclingstats.com/rider/Tsgabu_Gebremaryam_Grmay or on his twitter account: https://twitter.com/TsgabuG