There is rarely cause for celebration in Eritrea, but a historic winner at the Tour de France has brought huge joy to the gulag state.
News that Biniam Girmay had become the first African to take home the race’s coveted green jersey has sparked spontaneous mass gatherings in his home nation — events that, for any other reason, would be met with force.
Girmay, 24, said it felt “unreal” to claim one of the Tour’s most prized awards on Sunday, awarded for winning the points classification. Videos from Asmara, the capital where he grew up and trains, show its streets packed with euphoric crowds chanting “Bini”, standing on the roofs of honking cars and waving sparklers and flags. Girmay’s achievement is the first success in any large sporting event for the country regarded as Africa’s North Korea.
Life is usually a cheerless grind under Eritrea’s long-term autocrat Isaias Afwerki, a former rebel commander who has not held a national election in 33 years and imposes mandatory military conscription that drafts his citizens into indefinite servitude.
“These are not scenes we ever see in Eritrea. The crowds are not being told what to do by the government, they’re just celebrating like crazy,” said Abraham Zere, a journalist who is reporting on Girmay’s career in exile from Eritrea, where independent media operations are banned.
Girmay has become a unifying figure for Eritreans, a scattered population responsible for one of the highest rates of illegal migration into Europe. While many professional cyclists relocate to tax havens in Europe, Girmay has kept his base at home, where he lives with his wife and young child. Fans gather from dawn to watch his training rides up the winding Red Sea escarpment to Asmara, one of the world’s highest capital cities at 2,325 metres (7,628ft).
Football is another passion for the country, but Eritrea’s national team has not competed internationally since 2010 after a string of top players used overseas qualifiers to claim asylum.
Eritreans became fascinated with cycling in the 1930s when the country was an Italian colony and they watched the white outsiders racing through their streets. Eighty years after the Italians left, cycling is enmeshed in the national identity — a welcome diversion from a bleak reality.
Watching the Tour de France used to be a family event, Girmay said, but the 2015 race had the biggest impact when the Eritrean Daniel Teklehaimanot became the first black African to not only finish the race but to wear, for four days, the King of the Mountains’ polka-dot jersey.
Girmay secured his maillot vert ahead of last year’s winner, the Belgian Jasper Philipsen, at the final stage in Nice. Tadej Pogacar of Slovenia won the yellow jersey for best overall time, while Ecuador’s Richard Carapaz finished in the polka dots.
Girmay became himself the first black African to win a Tour stage when he claimed victory on day three of the race. He won two more to claim a total of three stage wins during the Tour, beating the feats of fellow Africans Daryl Impey and Rob Hunter, who won a stage each.
He also hailed Teklehaimanot as a trailblazer.
“He showed me everything was possible,” Girmay said in an interview after his first Tour stage win earlier this month. “Now we are part of the big races and have success. Now is our moment, now is our time. This is for all Africa.”
