Tough kid with a short temper saw the future — and it had two wheels.
Chris Willemse admits he was a hothead at times in his youth. But being bold and self-assured led him to succeed after he left school in Std 8 to pursue a career in cycling and later open a cycling business.
That drive for success can be traced to a tough upbringing. As a boy, he says, his family didn’t have much so he had to be “an operator” and a “schemer”. At the time, Willemse was a decent rugby player but it was cycling and its individualism that won out and took him overseas. During SA’s sports isolation in apartheid, Willemse competed abroad under a false name — until he was busted in 1975 and had to return home.
It wasn’t the only time his fists got him into trouble. At a cycling event in Oudtshoorn he punched a referee and was banned from the sport. Willemse had gone to Taiwan to explore opportunities to import bicycles. He ran into an acquaintance, former Western Province rugby player Danie Roux, who introduced him to Whitey Basson, then building his retail empire.
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