Second Edition News for December 4

Tour d'Accra

News of African cycling outside South Africa is hard to come by, but there is a lively cycling scene in north east Africa (Eritrea) and francophone West Africa (for example, Burkina Faso's Tour du Faso -- 30 November to 10 December 1996 -- is listed as a category 2.5 race on the elite calendar). Ghana, a country I spent a happy decade in, is more noted for football (soccer) than cycling but is obviously not without its bike fans. The following report was culled from the 4 December issue of West Africa magazine, a London weekly.

"Togolese cyclists Moreira Komi and Anani Kofi outclassed their rivals by finishing first and second respectively at the fourth Tour d'Accra cycling competition held at the Accra sports stadium in Ghana.

The Togolese were in top form as they romped home in the hotly contested 60 kilometre race, which featured 46 cyclists -- six of whom were from Togo. The third and fourth place positions went to the Ghanaian pair of Christian Adiabro and former champion Joe Sackey. The Togolese pair picked up 200,000 and 150,000 cedis in prize money for their efforts." [The cedi is now at a sad 1407 to the US dollar. When I first went to Ghana in 1969, there were 2.45 cedis to the pound sterling -- RT.]