VHR’s Managing Director Danny Brooks participated in the Cape Town Cycle Tour in South Africa last week.
Danny raced the Cape Town Cycle Tour with Olympic Gold Medal winner Daley Thompson as part of Team Laureus. Laureus is a charitable foundation that celebrates the power of sport, aiming to bring people together as a force for good.
Laureus’s first Patron was revolutionary activist and former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. At the inaugural Laureus World Sports Awards in 2000, President Mandela commented: “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers.” Nelson Mandela’s speech has become the philosophy of Laureus and the driving belief behind all its charitable work.
Now in its 40th anniversary, the Cape Town Cycle Tour is the largest timed cycle race in the world with over 35,000 riders. The course distance of 109km climbs a 1.5Km vertical ascent around the Southern Cape peninsula.
On Sunday 11th February, Danny completed the Cape Town Cycle Tour in a time of 3 hours, 57 minutes and 32 seconds.
VHR is proud to support Laureus, and through our sponsorship VHR has helped provide bicycles for the Cape Town Cycle Tour network of coaching staff in Africa. The bicycles were presented to some of the coaching staff at a ceremony attended by Danny Brooks and Daley Thompson on the Friday before the Race, and will aid Laureus in their work to fundraise and deliver projects across 35 countries around the world.
Find out about VHR’s charitable and social responsibility activities this year, including hosting the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support, competing in the London Santa Dash for Great Ormond Street Hospital and Danny’s ride across Australia in aid of the Steve Waugh Foundation.
Get involved with Laureus and donate here.