He Only Learnt How to Ride a Bike 10 Years Ago. Now, Nicholas Dlamini Is Part of Dimension Data’s World Tour Team, and Ready to Realise His Dream of Repping Sa in the Olympics and Riding in the Tour De France.
The twisty mountain passes of the Alps are ahead; a far cry from his home in Capricorn Park near Muizenberg, Cape Town. And yet, that is exactly where Nicholas Dlamini’s bicycle took him, when in June 2017 he won the King of the Mountains category at the under-23 Giro d’Italia – a first for an African.
If it’s his bike that got him there, it’s his passion, unwavering dedication and pro-class work ethic that is going to take him further. Perhaps all the way to the greatest stage in road cycling: the Tour de France. In August 2017, the 22-year-old took another huge pedal stroke toward that goal, when he made the step up from the Dimension Data Continental team (a feeder programme of sorts) to join the likes of Mark Cavendish, Daniel Teklehaimanot and Edvald Boasson Hagen on Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka’s World Tour outfit.
Dlamini was recently back in South Africa for Dimension Data’s annual training camp, and spent some time at home. The informal settlement of Capricorn Park is your typical big-city fringe community, struggling with the usual socio-economic problems: drugs and crime, low education levels, and alcohol abuse. It was here, as a 12-year-old, that Dlamini first got into cycling – thanks to a friend, Vuyisa Mgolombane, who persuaded him to join a small cycling club. There he cultivated his love for riding a bike, and realised it could take him somewhere – not only in the physical sense, but emotionally and financially as well.
South African ultra-trail legend Ryan Sandes remembers that 12-year-old. “Nic came to one of the first JAG Foundation Trail Running Camps I hosted,” Sandes explains. “Straight away you could see this kid was talented. I mean, just a natural athlete; but also, so determined to succeed,” he says.
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