Chain reaction

INEOS and marathon man Eliud Kipchoge set wheels in motion to create world-class cycling academy in Kenya

2
min 2022

A COUNTRY famed for producing the world’s best distance runners could soon be making real headway – in the world of cycling.

Eliud Kipchoge, the 5ft 4 Kenyan athlete who made history on the streets of Vienna by running a marathon in under two hours, has teamed up with INEOS to launch a cycling academy at the renowned Kaptagat camp where he trains.

“This is very great news,” Kevin Richie Preacher posted on Facebook. “I can foresee a Kenyan continental team coming up very soon.”

The INEOS Eliud Kipchoge Cycling Academy will be headed up by Valentijn Trouw, who was heavily involved in the record-breaking INEOS 1:59 Challenge in Austria in 2019.

Also involved will be the INEOS Grenadiers, one of the world’s most successful cycling teams.

Sir Dave Brailsford, INEOS’ Director of Sport and Team Principal of INEOS Grenadiers, said the new academy could help to develop new riders from Africa.

“We all know the talent is there,” he said. “We have seen it this year.”

In March Biniam Girmay became the first black African to win a World Tour race at Belgium's Gent-Wevelgem classic.

Two months later he made history as the first black African winner of a Grand Tour stage in the Giro d'Italia.

INEOS Chairman Sir Jim Ratcliffe recently visited the Kaptagat-based training camp.

“There is such exciting sporting talent, passion and ambition in Africa,” he said. “I am convinced that this partnership can do something truly different and unique for cycling – as well as for aspiring young African athletes.”

For more than 30 years Valentijn, who will work with the wider Kaptagat team, has identified and nurtured long-distance runners in Kenya, creating a pathway for them to compete on the world stage.

“Their passion, dedication and love of sport is a perfect fit with the INEOS Grenadiers’ spirit of giving it all to race and be your best,” said Dave. “Together I believe we can achieve something unique and important for cycling in Kenya, Africa, and the sport itself.”

Eliud, who will be seeking to make history in Paris 2024 by winning his third successive Olympic men’s marathon, said he was proud that the camp would no longer be a purely athletics-focussed training camp.

“The cycling academy is a very natural fit,” he said. “It’s got great potential to enable our young talented cyclists to make the next steps towards the top level of cycling.”

Valentijn said he, too, was excited at what could be achieved by working with INEOS and the INEOS Grenadiers cycling team.

“It is an opportunity to build a relatively new sport in Kenya and bring together our collective knowledge and insights from running and cycling for the benefit of the sport,” he said.

‘We all know the talent is there. We have seen it this year’ – Sir Dave Brailsford, INEOS’ Director of Sport and Team Principal of INEOS Grenadiers

INEOS and Eliud Kipchoge share a passion. They both believe that no human is limited. So it was only a matter of time before they linked up again.

3 min read

INEOS Oxford Institute

The accidental discovery by Alexander Fleming of a mouldy petri-dish in 1928 kickstarted a 20 year journey to develop the world’s first mass-produced antibiotic. But little progress has been made since the 1980s to develop new drugs to combat the growing ‘silent pandemic’ of antimicrobial resistance. Now scientists at the Ineos Oxford Institute have helped to identify a potential future drug that could extend the life of ‘last resort’ antibiotics. IN January 2021 INEOS committed £100 million to Oxford University amid fears that a growing, ‘silent pandemic’ of antimicrobial resistance would end modern medicine as we know it. A year on, scientists, based at the Ineos Oxford Institute, have made a promising discovery. Carbapenems are vital, often ‘last resort’, antibiotics that are used to treat serious infections, such as sepsis and pneumonia, when all others have failed. Despite that, some bacteria have found a way to render those carbapenems useless by producing enzymes called metallo-betalactamases (MBLs), leading to a rise in superbugs. But new collaborative research, conducted by scientists from the Ineos Oxford Institute and several institutions across Europe, has found that indole carboxylates, a new class of enzyme blockers, can stop those enzymes working, leaving the antibiotic free to attack and kill bacteria, such as E. coli, in the lab and in infections in mice. The researchers first screened hundreds of thousands of chemicals to see which would attach tightly to the metallo-beta-lactamases enzymes to stop them working – and which didn’t react with any human proteins. By zooming in to take a closer look at how they work, the researchers found that these potential drugs attached to the enzymes in a completely different way to any other drugs because they copied how the antibiotic behaved with those enzymes. The researchers then chemically changed aspects of the drugs to make them as effective as possible and tested them, in combination with carbapenems, against multi-drug resistant bacteria in both dishes in the lab and in mice. “The potential new drugs, in combination with carbapenems, were found to be many times more potent at treating severe bacterial infections than carbapenems alone,” said Professor Schofield. Antimicrobial resistance is currently responsible for about 700,000 deaths every year, but it threatens to get much, much worse, with fears that 10 million people could die every year by 2050 from common infections. “It is a massive problem because collectively we haven’t been making enough new clinically useful antibiotics,” he said. “As a society we must find ways both to make new antibiotics and protect the ones we have. The alternative is that routine modern medicine will be disrupted in a manner simply too horrendous to conceive.” INEOS’ £100 million, which was used to set up the Ineos Oxford Institute, will support research into the growing resistance to antibiotics. The money will enable more than 50 researchers to address the overuse and misuse of antibiotics, collaborate with other global leaders and develop new drugs for people and animals. “With the fantastic support we have received from INEOS, we can replicate the latest drug discovery programme within the institute for multiple different bacterial targets and applications,” said Professor Tim Walsh, Academic Lead (Microbiology) at the Ineos Oxford Institute. This latest research is the culmination of years of work and is a long way from being a proven solution. But if indole carboxylates can be developed, tested and made into safe, human medicines, they could extend the effectiveness and lifespan of some of our current antibiotics and save lives all over the world. Professor Tim Walsh said the discovery also proved that academia, given the space to create, could produce something amazing. “That’s what we have seen here,” he said. “And we hope to make many more similar promising discoveries as the institute grows over the years.” “This clever, Trojan Horse trick allowed these potential drugs to be highly effective against a very wide range of MBL-producing superbugs,” said Professor Christopher Schofield, Academic Lead (Chemistry), at the Ineos Oxford Institute at the University of Oxford. Scientists, based at the Ineos Oxford Institute, have made a promising discovery which could extend the life of 'last resort' antibiotics ‘This clever, Trojan Horse trick allowed these potential drugs to be highly effective against a very wide range of MBL-producing superbugs’ - Professor Christopher Schofield, Academic Lead (Chemistry), at the Ineos Oxford Institute at the University of Oxford Penicillin The discovery of Penicillin and its purification into the first antibiotic in the early 1940s was one of the greatest medical advances of the 20th century. Antibiotics changed the course of medical history, saving countless lives at the end of the Second World War, making childbirth safe for the first time in human history and allowing the creation of all modern surgery and cancer treatment that we benefit from today. Following the discovery of Penicillin there was a “golden age” of antibiotic discovery lasting several decades. Sadly, this era has finished, and we are left with a dwindling stock of medicines that are becoming ever less effective as bacteria naturally develop resistance to their actions. Society needs to continue working hard to keep hold of these medical gains, and avoid returning to a pre-antibiotic era when a simple cut could be fatal. The Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Research was established to advance the search for solutions to one of the biggest public health challenges of our time. Researchers are working in the lab, in the field and with the public to discover new ways to prevent and treat drug resistant infections. INEOSOXFORD.OX.AC.UK

3 min read