新加坡

No easy ride building a team of cyclists in a country better known for its world-class runnersThe midday sun is at its highest in the cloudless sky above the Great Rift Valley.迷你倉 Here on the roof of Kenya, the future of world-class running is on display.The competition for secondary school athletes in Nandi district is under way and sinewy figures thread speedily around a maze of wooden pole-markers through a green field.Sticking out from the crowd of chattering young Africans from 43 schools, and vendors with trays of sweets and biscuits strapped to their chests, is one Chinese man.Nicholas Leong, watching the runners closely, is a Singaporean chasing a dream in Kenya."That's the one we want," he says excitedly, pointing at the third-place finisher in a 5km race, a barefoot youngster who looks completely exhausted. "That runner looks like he doesn't have any support yet, but he is still up there with the leaders."The winners from the district meet move on to the schools national competition, where foreign scouts will descend to spot the next great Kenyan runner.Nandi has produced its share of winners, including 1968 (1,500m) and 1972 (3,000m steeplechase) Olympic champion Kipchoge Keino, and 1991 world champion (10,000m) Moses Tanui.By being here today, Leong has a headstart on the other talent scouts. But he's not looking for runners.He wants to persuade some of the aspiring athletes to ride bicycles instead.He is on a mission to form the first African team to compete in the Tour de France, the pinnacle of riding races.It is a dream that brought him from Katong to Kenya six years ago. He has been living in Iten, a tiny town perched 2,400m above sea-level in the Rift Valley, two hours by car from Nandi, and famed as the home of numerous international running champions.It is a town of crop farms and dusty red trails flanked by wooden shophouses hand-painted in pastel colours, where moving herds of cattle graze on sporadic patches of green grass.There is no running water in Leong's barely furnished, brick-walled quarters in a single-storey square block of adjoining apartments, each no bigger than a one-room Housing Board flat.He uses a pail to bathe, collecting cold water from a shared well. His electricity got cut a month earlier, a regular occurrence in these areas, and his cleaning lady has not turned up for weeks - evident from the food stains on his black T-shirt.He is a big man, about 100kg. His shoes are worn and weary, dyed in the same red hue as the earth that covers most of the walking paths.This is possibly as far as you can get from urbanised, cosmopolitan Singapore. But Leong, 45 and a bachelor, is at home, and uses dirt-stained fingers to pick up peanuts to munch."Anything also can, no problem," he says. "I've got an iron stomach."Stops and startsLeong has become something of a minor attraction in this town of 4,000. It could be his contagious enthusiasm, his gregarious personality, or even his chubby, oriental face.They call him "the Chinese man who owns a bicycle team", and his daily walks are interrupted by people greeting him and village kids who shout out: "Hello China!" And "Do you know gongfu?"Leong, a former professional photographer, says: "I could have an easy and enjoyable life back in Singapore. But here, I feel alive."To understand what would make a Singaporean turn his back on a successful career - one time, to impress a date, he flew her to London for a weekend to watch a U2 concert - one has to reach back to Nicholas Leong the young man.He took his first steps on the path less travelled at 21, soon after national service. "I went to secondary school, I didn't want to be there. I went to the army, I didn't want to be there," recalls the former student of St Patrick's School and Catholic Junior College. "After the army, I decided to take a year off to figure things out."The son of a doctor and a blind mother embarked on an exploration trip around South-east Asia, staying in budget digs, working odd jobs and teaching English to pay his way.One year stretched into three-and-a-half, leading him through Malaysia, Thailand and India. He stayed more than a year in Myanmar, where he volunteered in refugee camps.To document his travels, he taught himself photography and that eventually led him home and onto the next stage of his life as a commercial photographer. He started his own company at 27 and kept it going for 11 years.But his old restlessness kept churning.Then came the day in 2005, when he was in the crowd of spectators near the finishing line of the Standard Chartered Singapore marathon and he watched a Kenyan runner of light, graceful strides named Amos Matui win the race effortlessly in 2hr and 15min.A lifelong fan of the Tour de France, he was enthralled. It struck him then that the typical Kenyan elite runner possesses some of the same physical attributes as a world-class cyclist.The Kenyan may not be as powerfully built, but his propensity for endurance strength could make him an ideal candidate to be a cyclist, he thought. The body weights of top distance cyclists and long-distance runners are similar - 60 to 65kg."Fortunately or unfortunately, I thought of an idea that I couldn't walk away from," he recalls of the moment he knew that he wanted to try turning Kenyans who run into champion cyclists.He did not know anyone in Kenya, but he booked a ticket to go there the night after the marathon. At Changi Airport, he spotted a group of African runners and simply told them: "I'm following you home."And he went all the way to Iten.Today, he runs Kenyan Riders, a motley crew of Kenyan cyclists, a manager, a masseur, a chef, a mechanic and three coaches - two Australians and an Irishman.When he arrived, there were no cycling clubs or bicycle races. Leong picked a bunch of athletic men from various backgrounds - milk delivery men, firewood haulers, those who rode the bicycle taxis called boda-boda.Stopwatch in hand, he would simply pick the fittest-looking cyclist, plonk himself onto the back of his bike and say: "Go on, take me up that hill, as fast as you can."The men's only cycling experience came on Black Mambas, the common bicycle seen in rural Kenya, a heavy-utility bicycle weighing 18kg.Today, he has riders placed in three groups: The seniors, who clinched the team's best result last year when John Njoroge took third spot in the general classifications of the Tour de Rwanda; a second generation of teen riders; and a starter group of riders as young as 15.They are housed in a 0.1-ha plot within maize fields. There is a single-storey line of brick apartment rooms where the riders sleep and a backyard track to hone their riding skills.But like the rocky, ridged roads that line the streets of Iten, Leong's journey has not been smooth. He recalls several painful disappointments.Once, a rider claimed that his bike had been stolen, only for Leong to discover he had likely sold it. Another cyclist blew his entire month's wages in a single day, on alcohol. He was dropped from the team."I was naive and people exploited me. I really thought of giving up in the first few months," he says.The rhythm of life in rural Africa carries its own charm. But to a man from a country well known for efficiency and order, it came as a shock."The best way to work here is to be inefficient. It sounds strange but it is. People will take your sense of urgency to be a weakness, and they will exploit you."The process has been long and tiring. When a talented youngster is spotted, his coaches, school teachers and family members quickly sense there is money to be made.Palms turn upwards, seeking reimbursement for everything from family support to school allowances and training grants."To get to a talent, there are a lot of 'toll booths'. So you play the game and you wait until they realise that there is perhaps no money here," says Leong: "You have to weave through all that bull****. When they see me, a foreigner, they see a cash cow."Looking for riding stars is still a struggle in a culture where running is king. It is to Kenyans what football is to Brazilians or table-tennis to the Chinese - a national sport, and for the best, a ticket out of poverty.He has been trying to convince a town famous for its running men that a pair of wheels might also lead to the good life.Senior riders and staff of Kenyan Riders earn from KES$15,000 (S$220) to over KES$80,000 a month. This is higher than the country's average monthly wage of KES$6,498.A lesson on hopeLeong is on the road when he recognises an 11-year-old boy who once tried out for the team.He asks: "Have you been training?"The boy says: "Yes."Leong then asks: "So, can you now ride up the hill in eight minutes?"The boy instantly replies: "Seven minutes!"Leong smiles at the confident claim, but he trusts only his stopwatch.He has an open challenge to all and it is written on a sign he has put up: "Ride a Black Mamba bicycle from Biretwo to Tambach Chatolic (sic) Church in under 34 minutes to win KES$200,000."No one has done it. But Joseph Gichora, who came closest covering the gruelling 11km uphill climb - measuring about 700m in vertical height - in 34min and 43sec, is now with Kenyan Riders.With his stopwatch, Leong finds confidence. In 2008, he took riders Zakayo Nderi and Samwel Myangi for a time-trial at Alpe D'Huez in France. It is a famed stage of the Tour de France, covering 13.8 km, with 21 hairpin bends.Nderi and Myangi finished in 42min and 43min respectively - five minutes behind Lance Armstrong's drug-fuelled time of 37min in 2004.Not bad for the former shoe-shiner and boda-boda rider with no professional training or sophisticated million-dollar equipment.Such results strengthen Leong's belief in the raw talent he knows exists in Africa. For him, Armstrong's disgrace over drug use was a godsend. It means the gap between his riders and the best is not as great as it seems. "And we will narrow the gap," he says.But the biggest divide separating his Kenyan Riders from the world's elite is not merely a cultural one.There are huge financial barriers. While Leong's outfit gets by with about $400,000 annually, the top tour teams are funded in the millions. Britain's Team Sky report文件倉dly receives more than ¢G10 million (S$19 million) from sponsors BSkyB.Leong, a science student who did not go to university, estimates that he has spent about half a million dollars of his life savings on his Kenya passion project.He still collects rent from his 1,200 sq ft, two-room walk-up apartment in Katong, but he has dug deep into what he earned as a commercial photographer.For his Kenya project, he raised money by selling his most treasured belongings like his amplifiers, photography lights, vintage vinyl albums, books and a turntable.The first three years were financially shaky and he constantly worried if his dwindling savings would run out.But in 2009, investors Matthieu and Marie Anne Vermersch came on board after hearing about Leong's project. Matthieu had met Leong during his days as a professional photographer.The French couple, both in their 40s, have been funding the Kenyan Riders since. Says Matthieu, a fund manager: "This project is also a passion of Marie Anne's and mine. It just makes so much sense. It's obvious that it will work. If not today, then maybe in 10 years."Leong is looking next for team sponsorship, a critical step. He has so far secured product deals with bike supplier Polygon and apparel makers Quickspeed.He says: "Whatever we have done was done with a pool of only 50 guys. If we have the money and the resources, we can draw from the richest vein of talent."Despite his optimism, Leong has his naysayers. He has heard them many times over and he understands their cynicism. To which, he offers his own tongue-in-cheek reply: "Tell me honestly. Ten years ago, what do you think would have seemed more possible: To have a Black team in the Tour de France, or a Black man as President of the United States?"He says he gets his perseverance from his mother Angela Leong. The 77-year-old was among the first generation of visually handicapped people to find employment as switchboard operators in the 1950s."She told me that people will always doubt you when you are the first. We are trying to convince people to try or do something that never existed," he says.Pressed to share his motivation for carrying on, he says: "You want to leave a little scratch on the universe. Maybe it's a tiny one, but you want to leave something behind."Still, there are days when the sceptical voices ring too loudly, when a promise is not kept, when a visa application to ride overseas is turned down, when hope seems abandoned.But not today.Strolling back to camp at the end of a particularly long day, the scent of freshly baked chapati brings familiar comfort and a warm smile to Leong's face.Hope, above all, is what Kenyans have taught him. "You see it in their faces. They have this belief. And it makes you believe," he says.Backlighted by a blood-red setting sun, the silhouette of a group of men returning home is discernible from a distance.Glistening with sweat, they sit astride mechanical beasts plated in aluminium and carbon armour, their legs pumping gracefully.And Singaporean Nicholas Leong's dream looks close enough to grasp.ugenec@sph.com.sgRIDER #1: JOHN NJOROGEMilk deliveryman's daydreams come trueFor more than 10 years, John Njoroge plied cobbled dirt paths delivering milk in the Kenyan village of Kitiri.Those days astride his Black Mamba, the cheap bicycle used by rural Kenyans, were mundane.In his mind's eye, Njoroge kept seeing himself thousands of kilometres away, up on the French Alps or on the streets of Paris, racing against the world's elite road cyclists."When I was sending the milk, I was imagining racing with them and I was using a lot of power. I would ask myself, 'What if this was a race? What if I had a good bicycle? Would these guys beat me?'"Today, that vision is not so distant. Now 28, Njoroge joined the Kenyan Riders only a year ago and has quickly established himself as the team's top performer.He was named the third best rider at the UCI-sanctioned Tour of Rwanda 2012, behind Daren Lill, the race's winner, and Dylan Girdlestone, both representing South Africa.It was no mean feat given the field of riders from 11 participating nations, including the likes of the United States, France and Canada.Njoroge left school at 16 and went on to help his farmer father plant potatoes, rear cattle and deliver milk.His cycling dreams started after he came across a newspaper picture of Lance Armstrong before the legendary world champion was disgraced."There was always news about running, boxing or football in the papers. But one day I saw a bicycle. I was so happy," recalls Njoroge. "I was immediately interested in it. Who is he? Who is Lance Armstrong? Who are all these mzungus cycling in a bunch?He identified instantly with the mzungus - "white men" in Swahili. They were like him, men on two wheels.The more his vivid imagination played out, the harder he rode. Inevitably, and unknowingly, he was building his foundation in the sport.In the middle of 2010, at 25, he caught the eye of Kenyan Riders owner Nicholas Leong at a trial race on Mount Kenya and was signed on to the team.But what separates him from his teammates is a natural inclination to good technique.Says Leong: "The way Njoroge cycles is very efficient. The way he sits and pedals, he uses 30 per cent less energy than his teammates. He is not the fittest man on the team, but his technique helps him be the better rider."Njoroge tries to explain the reservoir of energy he draws on when he needs it most: "When we go for long mileage, when we go climbing, when our bodies are suffering, I feel like I can do better. When I'm in pain, I can feel my body become stronger.Now with a professional outfit, Njoroge spends less of his time daydreaming and more time training."I would like to be the first black Kenyan to shine as a rider," he says. "We have a lot of power. As Africans, as Kenyans, we have power that can be translated to cycling."RIDER #2: EMMANUEL KILLYFormer runner finds new passionLike most boys born in the Kenyan district of Nandi - home to 10km world champion Moses Tanui and two-time Olympic gold medallist Kipchoge Keino - Emmanuel Killy had dreams of becoming a world-class runner.At 18, he clocked 3 min 41 sec to come in third in the 1,500m at the national junior championships of Kenya - a country which is a giant in world distance running.His time, along with his 13 min 52 sec in the 5,000m clocked that year, is faster than Singapore's national marks of 3:51:59 and 14:51:09.Barely a year later, however, his running career came to a sudden halt.A coach at his school made him switch from track running to road competitions which he thought were more lucrative in terms of prize money.For the teenage runner, however, it proved too much too soon.To perform in road races over 5km, 10km, 21km, 42km and more, his training mileage shot up and his body was not prepared for it."It was very hard to go from track to road. The training was not gradual. It just rose up and that destroyed me. I got injured," says Killy, the son of maize farmers.A persistent right knee injury led to his early retirement from running. Now 22, he says: "I was planning to do my road races at 26 or 27, after I finished with track. I was still very young."But another door opened for Killy when Kenyan Riders' owner Nicholas Leong heard about his talent and came knocking.Cycling, Leong says, is less harsh on the joints. With proper rehabilitation and therapy, Killy could possibly still forge a career in sports.Says Killy: "My ambition has always been in sports. At the cycling camp, the coaches knew about my injury. I learnt a lot of exercises to make my knee stronger and soon the pain went away."With a newfound passion for cycling, Killy is also inspired by seeing his senior John Njoroge beat Caucasian riders."We train together, we sleep together, we eat the same food. It shows that we can do it. We can race against them, the white men. Like Njoroge has shown. They were there at Tour of Rwanda, and they came in behind him."RIDER #3: TOM KANGANGIFrom riding for a living to cycling for goldTom Kangangi was once one of the brightest pupils in Kidiwa Primary School in the Kenyan town of Eldoret and had a voracious appetite for learning the English language.Then his mother fell seriously ill and was bed-ridden, and his father deserted the family.At 13, he was pulled out of school because the family could not afford the fees, and he was sent to work on cattle farms earning 800 shillings - slightly over S$11 - a month."My mother did not ask me to stop school. But one day the teacher sent me home because we couldn't pay the school fees," recalls Kangangi, now 25 and a cyclist. He has an 18-year-old sister."I thought that I was working temporarily and I could return to school. But it went on like that, me working on the farm, until school was all forgotten."He never returned to school, but his thirst for knowledge never stopped.At 16, he found a job as an office boy in a printing company and would practise English by reading the magazines and newspapers available at work.He managed to save 2,000 shillings - enough to purchase a Black Mumba, an ordinary heavy-duty bicycle - and started work as a boda-boda bicycle taxi rider.That helped steer him towards his career today as a Kenyan Riders cyclist.Like his teammates, he is dreaming big and hopes one day to compete in the Tour de France. "It's very much possible. It's a road of determination and with the right guys, it's possible. This thing came to us late in our lives, but it's still possible. It's never too late."It is clear to see what fuels Kangangi through long-suffering hours of training and racing on tarmac and dirt roads."I think about my mother, my sister, my grandfather, and I think about myself. Someday I hope to have a family, and I want them to have a better life," he says. "It might not be the best life in the world, but I want to make it a little bit better."For inspiration, he turns to books.Picking up a copy of British rider Bradley Wiggins' newest autobiography My Time, he adds: "Books give me a picture of the Europeans and what happens to riders there. They tell me how they started their careers and that they too have their own difficulties."存倉