Scheduled to run until 23rd March, this edition features the participation of 15 teams made up of about sixty cyclists and a caravan of 180 people from ten countries in Africa and Europe.
Competitors will travel throughout northern Mauritania, which will enable them to discover the country’s touristic sites and assess its level of safety.
This event aims to develop the spirit of sport among young people in the country, said the Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz who flagged off the competition.
“Sport is key to strengthening social cohesion and solidarity”, Ould Abdel Aziz said after lamenting the fact that the sector has been neglected and marginalized for a long time.
He therefore expressed his government’s readiness to further develop sport.
“It is our duty, at the level of the government as well as the level of the federations, clubs and the civil society, to make every effort aimed at lifting the national sport at all levels,” the Mauritanian president postulated.
The first edition of the cycling competition witnessed the participation of only seven teams from five countries.