Atlanta-based sports technology company focused on energy management systems, Supersapiens, and Team Qhubeka ASSOS, Africa’s only UCI-registered WorldTour cycling team will be partners for the 2021 race season. Team Qhubeka ASSOS will also kick off an affiliate program with Supersapiens.
Here is the press release by the South African team.
Supersapiens and Team Qhubeka ASSOS Announce Partnership
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, January 27, 2021 – Supersapiens and Team Qhubeka ASSOS, Africa’s only UCI-registered WorldTour cycling team, are proud to announce they will be partnering for the 2021 race season.
Supersapiens, the first direct-to-consumer energy management ecosystem, utilizes the Abbott Libre Sense Glucose Sport Biosensor, the first glucose sport biosensor designed specifically for athletic performance, to help the team manage their fueling strategies in training, racing, and recovery.
“Beyond the team’s incredible success over the last decade, we are inspired by their core mission – the Qhubeka organization’s vision to change lives through bicycles is in line with our own purpose,” said Phil Southerland, CEO, and Founder of Supersapiens. “We’re thrilled to work with this team to incorporate feedback from these incredibly talented riders who will be utilizing our product at the highest level of the sport.”
For any athlete, energy management is key to success. With the Supersapiens app paired to the Abbott Libre Sense Glucose Sport Biosensor, Team Qhubeka ASSOS riders and staff will learn and train with real-time fueling data and powerful retrospective analysis tools.
Continuous glucose monitoring will allow team riders to better understand their body’s individual fueling requirements, discover stable and sustainable fuel sources, dial in their pre-race glucose loading strategy, and maintain their optimal fuel ranges during races – allowing their body to put out its maximum effort without concern for running out of energy.
“Our team name Qhubeka means ‘to progress’ or ‘to move forward’ in Nguni,” said Doug Ryder, team founder, and principal. “Not only will our team be focused on raising funds to purchase bicycles that will be used to improve lives, but our partnership with Supersapiens also gives us new insight to better glucose management. This information and what we learn, will be shared with the company and improve performance for athletes around the world. All of this is true progression.”
Team Qhubeka ASSOS will also kick off an affiliate program with Supersapiens. Athletes in the eight countries where Supersapiens is available can purchase the ecosystems and a portion of the sales will support the team and their mission to improve lives via bicycles.
“We all know the consequences of poor fueling. Low or unstable glucose levels can cause an array of physiological and performance degradations, ranging from impaired judgment, to loss of power or speed, all the way down to completely depleted energy stores,” said Team Qhubeka ASSOS team sports scientist Elliot Lipski. “Working with Supersapiens will help us to train and race better as well as empower more athletes around the world to do the same.”
The Supersapiens ecosystem includes the Abbott Libre Sense Glucose Sport Biosensor, the Supersapiens app, and a wrist wearable device in the final stages of development that displays data from the biosensor in real time. The app continuously tracks glucose data and allows athletes to create Events – workouts or races, meals, and rest – so they can correlate specific glucose levels with their body’s physiological performance during racing, training, and recovery.
And the Education Hub offers deep and insightful information to help athletes better understand glucose and the impact it has on performance, so anyone can learn how to optimize fueling for sustained performance.
The Supersapiens ecosystem powered by Abbott Libre Sense is now available in Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Learn more about the full line of Superaspiens products and purchase the Abbott Libre Sense Glucose Sport Biosensor at their official website.
About Supersapiens
Supersapiens is an Atlanta-based sports technology company focused on energy management systems to support sustained peak performance. Supersapiens empowers athletes to show up to the starting line optimally fueled, manage in-race fueling to sustain peak performance, and adequately refuel and recover.
The Supersapiens ecosystem, including the Abbott Libre Sense Glucose Sport Biosensor, is not available for sale in the U.S. at this time.
About Team Qhubeka ASSOS
Team Qhubeka ASSOS is a purpose-led, high-performance team, fighting to win on the world’s biggest stage, to inspire hope and create opportunity. Founded in 2007, Team Qhubeka ASSOS (formerly NTT Pro Cycling) became the first-ever African cycling team to gain a UCI WorldTour license, in 2016.
We achieved our first major win in 2013 when Gerald Ciolek won Milan-San Remo, one of the five Monuments of cycling. We have competed in six Tour de France’s and notched up 7 stage wins, with Mark Cavendish wearing coveted Yellow Jersey at the 2016 Tour de France.
We are a multicultural, diverse team with bases in South Africa, the Netherlands and Italy. There are 19 nationalities represented across our World Tour and continental feeder team rosters. Our focus on developing African cycling has resulted in more than 55 riders from the African continent be given the opportunity to race on the world stage, since the team’s inception.
We race to help people to move forward with bicycles through our relationship with Qhubeka Charity. Through our work with Qhubeka, we have contributed to the distribution of over 30,000 bicycles in communities in South Africa.
About Qhubeka
Qhubeka (www.qhubeka.org) is a charity that moves people forward with bicycles. People earn bicycles through our programmes, improving their access to schools, clinics, and jobs.
A bicycle is a tool that helps people to travel faster and further and to carry more. In the face of extreme and persistent poverty, bicycles can change lives by helping to address socioeconomic challenges at the most basic level – helping people to get where they need to go.
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