Eritrea’s Mekseb Debesay wins 6th stage of Tour of Rwanda

Meskseb Debesay

The 6th stage of the Tour of Rwanda started with breathtaking speed on a relatively flat 125.7km course from Huye to Kigali on Saturday.

The stage is described as one of the least challenging but one of the most tactical considering that it is fast from start to finish, according to race organizers.

Eritrea’s Mekseb Debesay (Team Bike Aid) bounced back during a tight competition wining the 6th stage of the Tour of Rwanda - continuing the successful series of competitions won by Eritrean riders.

Last year’s winner of the 6th stage of the Tour of Rwanda was Eyob Metkel of Team AS.BE.CO from Eritrea who relied on his climbing abilities to take advantage of his already tired and worn out colleagues to cross the finish line before anyone else.

The course today went through relatively flat and winding roads through the districts of Huye, Nyanza, Ruhango, Muhanga and Kamonyi before it enters Kigali where they cross the finish line at the Regional Stadium in Nyamirambo.

Cyclists from the host country Rwanda faced tough competition from Eritrean riders like Dawit Haile, Mekseb Debesay and Aron Debretsion as well as Morocco’s Mraouni Salaeddine.

The final stage of the Tour of Rwanda will take place on Sunday in the City of Kigali where riders will compete on a 108Km long course around the city.

According to race organizers around fifty riders remain in the race after several abandonments, as of today.

//Edited on 22 November 2014 by editorial team

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  • Patrick

    Thank your for the Tour du Rwanda news, I enjoyed following Tour du Rwanda the whole week. Thank you so much!

  • guest

    Eritrea’s Meskseb Debesay wins 6th stage of Tour of Rwanda

    Eritrea’s Mekseb Debesay won the first stage of the sixth edition of the Tour of Rwanda on the 96.4 km course from Kigali to Ngoma.

    Cycling: Eritrea’s Meseb Debesay wins first stage of Tour of Rwanda

    WHAT IS THE CORRECT NAME OF THIS HERO? ?? WHY SO HARD TO SPELL IT CORRECTLY? doesnt look as hard to spell as arnold schwareznegger

  • guest

    schwarzenegger…schwarzenegger…schwarzenegger…hahaha

  • Mehari Tesfai SF,CA&DC metro

    We Eritrean diasporas need to engage in diplomacy efforts to convince the Tigray people here in diaspora to join the Eritrean people in creating one force that will dismantle our common enemy the Amhara. Eritreans need to work on their enemy the Amara not join terrorist group.TPLF uses power against Amhara but without our help TPLF is not able to win the fight against Amhara hjust like the TPLF needed us in the fight against DERG.

    For over four decades, the self-styled Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which clings to power by force in Ethiopia today, has been planning and waging a sustained and relentless political, social and cultural war to “de-Ethiopianize” Ethiopia. The TPLF’s de-Ethiopianization program and ideology are built around a set of specific strategies, policies, actions and practices intended to 1) strip Ethiopians of any meaningful consciousness of their national identity and expurgate from their collective social experience any sense of commonly shared values, beliefs and customs, and 2) balkanize, merchandize and dismember the country employing a variety of tactics and schemes. The TPLF’s “de-Ethiopianization” ideology and programs were diabolically conceived, meticulously planned and systematically executed with the ultimate aim of obliterating the historical Ethiopia and replacing it with an “Ethiopia” fabricated from the warped figment of the TPLF’s imagination. The TPLF has officially and openly implemented its de-Ethiopianization program since it seized power in 1991.

    .

    The answer to that question comes with crystal clarity from Gebremedhin Araya, the former treasurer and top leader of the TPLF, who left that organization and distinguished himself as a fearless and uncompromising patriotic Ethiopian truth-teller. In an extraordinary video interview posted on Youtube (with my English translation of the Amharic words below), Gebremedhin explained the TPLF’s four ideological pillars of de-Ethiopianizing Ethiopia by systematically cleansing Ethiopian national identity, history and consciousness:

    1) Eritrea is an Ethiopian colony. Eritrea is a developed country. Eritrea existed before Ethiopia. Ethiopia is a country created by (Emperor) Menelik. The name Ethiopia is not known. Ethiopia has no history, nothing.

    2) Tigray is an independent sovereign country which was invaded by (Emperor) Atse Menelik and became an Amhara colony. Tigray is a colonial territory of Amhara. That is what is stated in the woyane (TPLF) Manifesto which is the policy guideline (exhibiting the Manifesto in the video). [To read the original handwritten ‘TPLF Manifesto” in pdf format, click here; for the online version click here] Therefore, we must liberate Tigray from Amhara colonialism and create a Tigray republic.

    3) Amhara are the enemy of the Tigray people. Amhara are not only enemies but also double enemies. Therefore, we must crush Amhara. We have to destroy them. Unless Amhara are destroyed, beaten down, cleansed from the land, Tigray cannot live in freedom. For the government we intend to create, Amhara will be the main obstacle.

    4) Since Ethiopia is a country created by Menelik, created by Menelik’s invasion and sine there are many nations and nationalities invaded by Menelik, these groups (hold and exhibits Manifesto in the video) must gain their freedom from what is now called Ethiopia and establish their own country. The country known as Ethiopia is new and not even 100 years old. This country must be destroyed, zeroes out. Nations and nationalities and we must create our own governments. Eritrea gets her independence; that is the basis of our struggle.

    It is important to note that neither the TPLF as an organization nor its leaders in power, marginalized from power or retired from power have ever jointly or severally disavowed the authenticity of the document known as the “TPLF Manifesto” nor repudiated any of its contents. The “Manifesto” remains to this day the guidepost and ideological underpinning of the TPLF.

    In 2000, after a two-year war with Eritrea and the deaths of some 80 thousands Ethiopian soldiers, the late Meles signed the Algiers Agreement formally ending the Ethiopian-Eritrean War. That Agreement established a boundary and claims commissions to resolve outstanding issues. What is incredible and inexcusable about that Agreement is the fact that after the Eritreans invaded Badme in northern Ethiopia in 1998 and were decisively defeated, Meles promptly converted Ethiopia’s battlefield victory into total diplomatic defeat by agreeing to deliver Badme to the invaders in arbitration. This marks the first time in modern world history where a nation that successfully repelled an invasion of its territory at great cost of human lives promptly turned around and delivered that same territory to the enemy on a silver platter in binding international arbitration.