With new sponsorship arrangement, historic squad MTN-Qhubeka to be reborn as Team Dimension Data

Back in July, South African mobile communications brand MTN announced that they were ending their sponsorship arrangement with South African team Qhubeka — a decision that came despite the team’s resounding successes at the Tour de France. It was a tough call, the company said, but one that came down to conditions in the market, circumstances that had affected the business’s other dealings, too.

“We feel we don’t have a return on that investment at the levels of comfort to us,” corporate affairs executives told reporters during the summer. The departure of the team’s valuable patron, no doubt, left member cyclists in the lurch.

As of this week, though, the South African team is out of the fiscal woods, and it has a new name: Team Dimension Data.

Earlier today, in Richmond, Virginia, Dimension Data announced that it has become the new title partner of Ryder Cycling, the owning and managing organization of the team once known as MTN-Qhubeka. Starting on January 1, 2016, just in time for the new season, the team’s fresh identity under its new organizational umbrella kicks in. And when it does, Dimension Data finds itself a vital partner with a team that has made history during the 2015 season as the first African team to start at the Tour de France.

The team’s participation in the Tour de France yielded other head-turning successes at the event, too, such as Daniel Teklehaimanot’s claim to the King of the Mountain jersey over four days of the race, making the Eritrean cyclist the first African rider to wear it. On Mandela Day — July 18 — Stephen Cummings won stage 14, leading his squad to a fifth-place overall finish among the full roster of 22 competing teams. Rounding out their strong showing at the Tour, the team also raised over 4,000 bicycles as part of their #BicyclesChangeLives campaign, supporting schoolkids in South Africa.

Knowing the momentum the team has generated for cycling in their home country — as well as their significance on the global stage, and with that work in philanthropy, not just in athletics — officials on both sides of the arrangement are thrilled to see it continue.

“We are incredibly excited to have Dimension Data become our new title partner,” said Douglas Ryder, the team’s principal. “It enables us to continue to support the development of African cycling and the Qhubeka charity at the highest levels in world cycling. Cycling is such a high tech sport, and we’ve leveraged technology and data through our high performance team to build the bridge from racing in Africa to competing successfully against the best in the world on the global race calendar.”

“This is the next step in our journey and we look forward to accelerating our collective ambitions through this partnership,” Ryder added.