The intruder of the news gives each evening a spotlight on a personality who could have passed under the radars of the news.
They will be in all and for all two Africans at the start of the Tour de France 2023, Saturday July 1 in Bilbao. Biniam Girmay will be the only black rider alongside Louis Meintjes a white South African, his teammate in the Belgian Intermarché-Circus-Wanty team. Biniam, alias Bini, made a name for himself last year by being the first black African rider to win a Grand Tour stage. It was on the Giro, the Tour of Italy, in Jesi, on the 10th stage. You have to listen to the Eurosport commentator marvel in the final sprint. Bini is in the fight with the Belgian Mathieu van der Poel. “History is being written” he predicts in the last meters, with exultation: “History is being written… Eritrea wins a stage of a Grand Tour!” When crossing the line, we hear him shout a “Veni, Vidi, Bini” in a joyous diversion of the motto of Julius Caesar who uses the nickname Bini… motto which was also printed on the T shirts of connoisseurs all over the the city.
Unfortunately for Girmay, the Giro will stop that evening, because he is injured on the podium: a cork of prosecco placed at his feet escapes and lands in his eye. The unfortunate landed in the hospital and gave up, he who was however second in the sprinters classification and whom all of Africa dreamed of seeing at the start of the Tour de France… It will not be for this time, but it will be the case on Saturday .
Beginnings… under two names
Biniam Girmay is 23 years old today. He was born in 2000 in Asmara, the capital… with two names “Girmay” (his father’s first name) and “Hailu” (his grandfather’s). A headache for the UCI, which during its first races will sometimes find it difficult to know what to call it.
Very quickly, he took the wheel of his cousin, who was eight years older and who, when Biniam was 12, was selected in France for the Tour de l’Avenir. At 15, Biniam is fascinated by the triumphant return of Daniel Teklehaimanot, a precursor, celebrated by all of Eritrea at the end of his own Tour de France. And then at 18, the UCI unearths this nugget during its scouting in Africa, sends it to its training center in Switzerland, in Aigle. He has the authorized age limit to register for a UCI event. We are in 2019, and in the jersey of the Eritrean selection, he wins a stage of the Tropicale Amissa Bongo, in Gabon.
His victories in Africa will allow him to be spotted by the big teams. Winner of the African Championship, the Tour of Gabon, at 18, the young Eritrean even beat André Greipel, the German sprint star. He also won the Tour du Rwanda, which is a benchmark. At the end of 2019, he was finally hired by the French team Delco (second division) which was forced to part with him for financial reasons, allowing the Belgians of the Intermarché-Wanty Gobert team to recover him for free. Excellent operation, including for him, who finds himself in important races, quickly becomes leader of the team and even offers Ghent-Wevelgem in August 2020, before finishing second in the U23 World Championship.
His teammate Rein Taaramäe says of him that he was “born on a bike”, that he has the infused science of cycling and that few are those who manage their position so naturally in a sprint, making the effort at the right time. So many natural qualities in him. Its sports director, did not say anything else in a radio documentary devoted to him by RFI:
On this Tour he will therefore be the leader of his Belgian team. But all of Africa will look at him as a symbol, he who was elected African cyclist of the year three times in 2020, 2021 and 2022. Strangely, his victory on the cobblestones of Ghent-Wevelgem went a little unnoticed because the only classics broadcast on Eritrean TV were Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix. On the other hand, his victory at the Giro had enormous repercussions. Belgium have also adopted this team leader, while also watching him out of the corner of their eye. Connoisseurs remember that before beating Willy Van der Poel on the cobbles at Wevelgem, Biniam Girmay was also one of the only two riders to have beaten Remco Evenepoel in the juniors.