How old is paul sherwen

The nomadic clans were resettled into villages after Yoweri Museveni came to power in , which created further pressure on Karamojong identity. Civil wars were erupting in neighboring Rwanda, Sudan, and the Congo, and the illicit arms trade flooded Karamoja with automatic weapons. Tribal disputes were too often settled with guns instead of traditional tribal compromises, and the Ugandan army occupied the area to keep some measure of peace. But by the early s, there were more guns than people in Karamoja, and the escalating regional conflicts led to waves of refugees migrating into other parts of Uganda, particularly the capital city of Kampala.

Against this backdrop of uncertainty, Sherwen and his wife, Katherine, permanently moved back to his spiritual homeland in According to Katherine, many of those who decided to return were contemporaries in the Uganda that Paul had grown up in, but Uganda in lacked progress. His approach was self-reliance. What can we do with what we have to train people to earn a job and continue to develop skills?

Cycling was the career that prepared Paul for his calling. According to his contemporaries, his Manchester-based cycling coach Harold Nelson instilled an ethos in him to get up every time you fall down. Lessons he learned as a racer and as the press officer for the Motorola team sharpened his commentary style, and his rapport with the well-established Liggett had solidified. Furthermore, he understood that these opportunities needed investment and time. His childhood mentor, Frank Howett, had long owned a gold mining concession and Sherwen came in as a partner Liggett and Lance Armstrong also invested for a time and ran its daily operations when not in the broadcast booth.

To get the mine operational, he and Frank found a derelict World War II steel ball mill in Mombasa — a huge piece of munitions manufacturing equipment — and relocated it to the mine and spent countless hours repairing it to reprocess old tailings and keep the business running. When massive oil and gas reserves were discovered in western Uganda in the early s, Sherwen and his partners recognized the potential, but also realized that extensive industrial and infrastructure development would also be needed.

This, in turn, would require new education and healthcare facilities, and greater mobility for the people. All of this could be capitalized by the energy wealth under their feet, but they had to find a way to bring it to the surface and to the global market. While Tuhumwire was a professional geologist and political facilitator, Burley was a man who could get things done on the ground. According to Burley, the Logistics arm laid down one kilometer of road per day, through some of the most challenging and isolated terrain, to a standard required for ton transport trucks and meet very tough UK-level environmental and safety requirements.

These were commercial entities designed to make a profit and all three were ground-breaking in East Africa in different ways. We believed that commercially driven training can be the most effective path to self-reliance. Pat Montani, a Canadian businessman and the founder of the grassroots Bicycles For Humanity movement, first met Sherwen in and the two entrepreneurs formed a strong personal friendship.

That year, he was crowned the best amateur racer in France and 12 months later he was in the Tour de France, riding for the Fiat professional team. He was invited to nominate a successor at ACBB, and thus became the first of a string of English-speaking cyclists to find a route to the Tour de France through the club between and At the La Redoute team in and , his job was to shadow Roche, as the Irishman was similar in size; he would lend him his bike if he had a mechanical issue.

In , when Roche finished third in the tour, he would drop back time after time to the team support car to collect sponges soaked in eau de cologne which his leader would put on his neck in hot weather.

In his final tour, , he crashed on stage 10, sustaining a massive bruise on his back, and finished the stage well outside the time limit. He was reinstated after his team manager and one of the organising team, Albert Bouvet, fought his cause with the referees. Sherwen teamed up with Liggett in , when Channel 4 became the first British broadcaster to offer daily race coverage.

He continued to ride his bike each day to keep race fit. He won British national professional titles that year and in his final racing season, This toughness was also suited to the classics where he shone including his 11th place at the Milan-San Remo and finishing 15th in the Paris-Roubaix, two of cycling's important Monuments.

Sherwen saw out the final two years of his pro cycling career with Raleigh where he also produced victories in the British National Circuit Race Championships and the British National Road Race Championships. Sherwen first tried his hand at cycling commentary with Phil Ligget in 33 years ago. And the golden era of Sherliggetism was born. Sherwen was a true citizen of the world, fluent in several languages and travelling most of it every year.

But his heart belonged to Africa where he resided in Uganda for several decades and more recently regularly championing the rising stars of African cycling. Always a member of our SBS family, we extend our sincere condolences to Sherwen's cherished and beloved. We'll leave you with some of the numerous posts on social media paying tribute to a man of his calibre:. I went to bed in Africa with a heavy heart last night feeling sadness like never before. My team mate for 33 years was no longer with me.

Your hundreds of messages showed how well PaulSherwen was loved. Let's think of Katherine and his children with love just now. Shocked to learn of the sudden passing of Paul Sherwen. A former pro-cyclist who became a familiar voice for SBS audiences as a member of his partnership in commentary with Phil Liggett.

This was our last time together in July this year. A true gentleman. Paul, you made the world a better place. A childhood hero who became a mentor and friend. RIP pic. Always generous with his time, I learnt plenty working alongside him. Stunned to hear the news about Paul Sherwen.