Back in June I travelled out to Switzerland with Cycle Sport magazine staff writer Andy McGrath to photograph Daniel Teklehaimanot at the UCI World Cycling Centre in Aigle; the feature appears in the new October 2010 issue and I’m pleased to say that they’ve done a very fine job with image selection and layout with only one photo that isn’t mine sneaking in via a side-bar with Sky rider John-Lee Augustyn about the difficulties for Africans making it to the professional ranks. This was a great assignment to get and was quite different from the usual celebrity athlete interview feature (not that I don’t love those too…); currently relatively unknown, Teklehaimanot was born and raised in the African country of Eritrea (a country with a strong cycling scene as a result of it being colonised by Italy from 1890 to 1941 but also a bloody war-torn history and ranked as the worst country in the world for press freedom violations) and poised to become the first black-African cyclist to make it to the top-tier of professional cycling despite undergoing a heart operation just last year after tests indicated that he had tachycardia. Big thanks to Ed Pickering for assigning me and Andy McGrath for being such a good travel companion and doing such a great job with the words; you can read the article in full by picking up a copy of the new issue from any good newsagents.
Out-takes: I really wish I’d stepped back and taken a wider set-up photo of this first one (an alternate from the photo that ran as the double page spread opener); there were four of us all hunkered down in the wheat; as well as Daniel and me, Andy (writer) and Michel (Daniel’s coach) were holding onto a softbox for dear life as gale-force winds blew through the valley.
