Capricorn champion Dlamini gets his World Tour call-up
Four years ago, Stephen Roche was riding hard along the roads of the Western Cape. He was taking part in the 2013 Cape Rouleur, a stage race organised by the team from Hot Chillee that includes a few professionals, some decent amateur talent and the rest of us fish-and chips mob square pedalling at the back.
Roche won the triple crown of Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and World Championship 30 years ago, one of just two riders to do so. He was in the front group, keeping company with Karl Platt, the German who has won the Absa Cape Epic five times. Platt was in contention for the yellow leader’s jersey in the Rouleur, an event he used as a warm-up for the Epic.
On the second day, Roche and Platt were rolling along in the bunch, when a young kid caught the eye of the Irishman.
He was riding an older, heavier bike, but he was very much in contention for the yellow jersey.
“I asked him his name and he politely answered, ‘Nicholas Dlamini’,” said Roche this week. “I asked him his age and he said, ‘Almost 18’. I asked him to repeat and he answered, ‘Almost 18 years old, Sir’.” Roche did a double take.
“He was riding a very heavy bike, which he told me he got a loan of it from a friend to ride the event,” said Roche. “What impressed me most was that he was everywhere — in the sprints, in the mountains, in the crosswinds fighting with hard, seasoned top cyclists and still fighting in the final sprint for the yellow jersey at the finish.
“Nicholas had impressed everybody with his sense of tactics, his style, his attitude not being intimidated by the big older pros, but always respecting them.”
This week, Dlamini, who will turn 22 on August 12, joined those older pros on the big stage after Team Dimension Data announced he had been called up to their World Tour team. He will ride for them as a trainee for the rest of 2017, with the plan being for him to remain with the team for 2018 and beyond. He has been described as the next “big thing” to come out of South African cycling. He will certainly be the biggest thing to come out of the township of Capricorn Park just outside Cape Town.
From the township to the Tour de France. That has been Dlamini’s dream since he took up cycling at the age of 12, a sport that fought with running for his full-time attention.
Capricorn was not an easy place to grow up in. Dlamini still lives there when he returns home from his base in Lucca, Italy, where he stays with Dimension Data’s feeder team.
There are three dogs at the shack he shares with his mother, Gloria.
They have three dogs, primarily for security, which is important when you have a R70,000 bike in your bedroom. When his talent was spotted and he received his first bike, he would hide it in the toilet at home as he thought no one would think to look for it there.
It takes a village to raise a child, and there have been many involved in the rise of Dlamini. He became involved in the Jag Runners in 2009, where he was given a bursary to attend Steenberg High School. He won awards for running, but cycling began to pull him away and he began riding with the Velokhaya cycling club at the age of 16.
Sipho Mona, GM of Velokhaya, will tell you of this skinny kid from Muizenberg keeping up with Luthando Kaka on Red Hill.
Vanessa Sandes, an actress, model and cyclist, became involved in Hot Chillee’s development programme. She was alerted to Dlamini’s talent by her husband, Ryan, an ultratrail runner.
Dlamini took part in the Rouleur. Roche noticed him. Everyone noticed him.
Ben Swift, the British sprinter and Olympian, mentored him on his summer trips to the Cape.
Dimension Data signed him to their feeder team in 2015, where JP van Zyl oversaw his development. Doug Ryder, team principal of Dimension Data kept an eye on Dlamini. He kept on improving, his drive never faltering. He won the King of the Mountains jersey in the under-23 Giro d’Italia.
Ryder decided it was time. Dlamini has been called to the big stage.
The Tour de France cannot be too far away for the man they call the Capricorn Champ.