Froome predicts east African takeover of road cycling as soon as infrastructure improves

East Africans will eventually dominate road cycling in the same way they do long distance runnning, according to Chris Froome.

The Tour leader has noted how the region’s first ever participants, Eritreans Daniel Teklehaimanot and Merhawi Kudus have taken to the sport, even claiming the KOM jersey in the case of Teklehaimanot.

"I believe athletes from east Africa are potentially the best endurance athletes in the world given their physiology and their upbringing at altitude," Froome, himself born in Kenya said, according to the Bangkok Post.

"At the moment the biggest problem they're struggling with is infrastructure, the roads to train on, equipment, and the federations are a bit of a mess.

"It's the wild west up there but I really think it's a huge area for development for the future.

"There are already a couple of projects -- there's the Safari Simbaz project I'm involved with; Kenyan Riders also have a project out there.

"It's really interesting results that they're yielding and I don't think it's going to be too long before we see some real results coming out of east Africa."

Teklehaimanot has made it his aim to raise money to buy 5,000 bicycles for poor African children.

He said of his polkadot jersey, won on Thursday: "I am excited to be able to show my team's colours on the podium because we are trying to give 5,000 bicycles to African students -- being on the podium will help our project and I want to help make a difference for my African people.”