Merhawi Kudus

Merhawi Kudus Ghebremedhin was part of the generation that carried Eritrean cycling onto the WorldTour stage. A climber from Asmara, born in January 1994, he turned professional with MTN–Qhubeka at twenty and rode the 2015 Tour de France in the team’s historic debut season — one of the first Eritreans ever to start the race, and among the youngest riders in the field.

The years that followed took him through Astana and EF Education–EasyPost, with the overall at the 2019 Tour du Rwanda and a steady accumulation of national titles: the road race in 2018 and 2022, the time trial in 2021. He has finished on the podium of the Eritrean championships in nine different seasons across three disciplines.

What makes his record unusual is its second act. Many of his contemporaries had faded by thirty; Kudus went to Terengganu in 2024 and won the Tour de Banyuwangi Ijen outright, took second overall at the Tour of Turkey, and collected five medals at the African Games. Then in 2025, riding for Burgos Burpellet BH, he won the African continental road title — a decade after his first Worlds selection, and the clearest answer to anyone who had written him off.

He goes to Montréal as the rider in this selection who has seen the most, and who has been counted out the most often.