ProTouch continues to lead SA’s continental road cycling resurgence
ProTouch has dominated as the leading South African UCI continental team.
Rookie continental team, ProTouch Cycling, has found itself at the forefront of South Africa’s return to the top of Africa’s road cycling rankings, becoming the leading SA continental team.
ProTouch has been shaking things up on the domestic road cycling circuit for years, and this year decided to take its talents to the African continent, where it has become South Africa’s newest continental team listed on the UCI Afric Tour. Since their addition to the African circuit, they’ve taken part in five UCI points-earning tours in the space of four months, and managed to rack up a total of 309,35 UCI points.
These points see ProTouch lie third on the UCI Africa Tour team rankings, behind Rwanda’s Benediction Excel Energy and Algeria’s Sovac, and ahead of fellow South Africa team, TEG Procycling. ProTouch’s impressive exploits aren’t limited to the team rankings however, as it has four riders inside the Top 100 on the UCI Africa Tour, and nine riders in total contributing to South Africa’s UCI points tally.
When ProTouch started out on the continental front, the organisation set out a few key objectives, with one of them being to help South Africa return to the top of the nation rankings on the UCI Africa Tour. The nine ProTouch riders that have earned UCI points thus far, have helped the country do just that, as South Africa currently lies top with 2 542,45 points, ahead of Eritrea (1 842,5) and Algeria (1 178,32).
The team’s most recent points came from impressive performances by two ProTouch riders, at the Tour du Maroc and Tour de Langkawi respectively. ProTouch finished the Tour de Langkawi with 14 Top 20 stage positions – 11 Top 15 and six Top 10 places – and as the 12th team out of 21 participating teams.
ProTouch returned home from Morocco and Malaysia to begin preparations for the 100 Cycle Challenge, Tour of the Gila (UCI America Tour), and Tour de Limpopo, which all take place in May. ProTouch’s participation in the Tour of the Gila (UCI America Tour) constitutes the team’s third continental UCI tour as the team has already taken part in the UCI Africa and UCI Asia Tours.
