Inside the return of the Tour of Azerbaijan – and the uneasy politics surrounding cycling’s newest comeback race.
Brian Hodes / Velo Images
Could you place Azerbaijan on a map? The world is full of places that exist outside the western consciousness, and that’s the case in cycling too. But, as the old saying goes, travel expands the mind – and by whatever quirk of circumstance that has led me to this point in life, I’ve been having my mind expanded a lot lately.
I’d just returned from a trip to the Tour of Benin in West Africa, where I’d been the DS for Team Bike Aid. We took the overall GC win and several jerseys, surviving both the aggressive potholes and mosquitoes, so it was a successful venture, but it’s fair to say I was looking forward to a little downtime in May.
The very next morning, Stephan van der Zwan of ProCyclingStats called me: “Would you like to attend the Tour of Azerbaijan with me? There are several African riders racing and the organiser is happy to bring you to Baku to report on the race.”
Alongside my work with Team Bike Aid, I work regularly with the Africa Rising Cycling non-profit, helping develop and promote all things African cycling, as well as freelance work for various cycling magazines and podcasts. The start-list of the race – which has been on hiatus for years, but has come back rebranded as the ‘Baku-Khankendi Cycling Race’ – featured eight African riders from five nations, along with a diverse assortment of riders from elsewhere around the world. This felt like an opportunity that was worth seizing.
With my work, I travel to a lot of countries with alerts or negative travel advice so the UK government’s advice ‘not to travel’ was not altogether uncommon. Seeing the risks laid out in dry, procedural language, though, is always a little stressful. The UK government isn’t an outlier in this; Australia and the US are likewise fairly opposed to the idea of their citizens taking a trip to Azerbaijan, warning of landmines and terrorist attacks, along with the tendrils of war creeping over the Iranian border, to the south. I later heard that a UK-based commentator, who was due to be on the ground for Eurosport/TNT Sports Cycling, could not secure travel insurance due to these issues.
I booked my flights nonetheless.
Did we do a good job with this story?