Every morning when the Ethiopian road race champion, Negasi Haylu Abreha, wakes up he has no idea whether his family are alive. The 20-year-old Team Qhubeka (UCI Continental team) rider is currently living in a shared apartment in Lucca, Italy, now anxiously waiting for the cycling season to come around again. Negasi, who in 2021 will ride his second year with the Team Qhubeka Continental team, is from Mek’ele, the main town in the region of Tigray, Ethiopia. This conflict arose on 4 November 2020, the exact same date that Negasi travelled from Bologna to Rome after the conclusion of racing for the season for the NTT Continental cycling team. Founded in 2007, Team Qhubeka ASSOS (formerly NTT Pro Cycling) became the first-ever African cycling team to gain a UCI WorldTour license, in 2016.

Source: Ethiopian News February 11, 2021 10:41 UTC