Lange Sports is a sports sponsorship management company that specialises in connecting brands with appropriate properties to maximise brand reach across various consumer touch points. We bring experience, vision and know-how to our clients and offer a 360-degree approach to managing their sponsorship, right from the initiation phase through to the fine-tuning phase.
Malcolm Lange is South Africa’s most prolific road cyclist, having racked up over 400 major race wins during a career that spanned 20 years.
At Lange Sports we pride ourselves on our professionalism in delivering a measurable return on investment to our clients, ensuring they reap the benefits through our proactivity and planning.
Malcolm Lange is South Africa’s most prolific road cyclist, having racked up over 400 major race wins during a career that spanned 20 years.
Towards the end of his racing career, Malcolm, widely respected for being the ultimate professional athlete and a natural leader, saw the need for a professional sports management company and, along with wife Jackie, created Lange Sports.
Since 2009, Lange Sports has taken on major corporate brands as well as emerging niche brands and given them relevant platforms from which to deliver brand awareness, increased business in new markets, corporate hospitality opportunities and corporate team-building opportunities. Using professional road cycling as our foundation, we have now branched out into mountain biking and corporate cycling getaways and are currently exploring expansion into other popular endurance sports.
Passion, bordering on obsession is what defines the endurance sportsman/woman whether they’re a seasoned professional or weekend warrior. We share this passion and we understand how they think, what inspires them, what they need. We have the expertise and the infrastructure to ensure they have a positive interaction with our clients’ brands, be it in person, via word of mouth, through social media or traditional media.
At Lange Sports we’ve become very fond of the feeling of victory and the taste of success; and we love to share that with our clients. We crave challenges and the satisfaction that comes with overcoming them. We have a proven formula that can be applied to your brand to deliver more, much more.
MALCOLM LANGE
As a result, the sport in South Africa lacked a decent structure to support rising stars, not just in cycling, but all sports. Talented cyclists like Malcolm had to make their own way to Europe to try and make it big. Malcolm did just that in the early-to-mid 1990s, but soon discovered that if he wanted to compete on a level playing field, he would have to start doping.
Morally, he was very uncomfortable with this and after a few of seasons of racing (clean) in Belgium, where he won over a dozen races and achieved many podiums, he returned to South Africa preferring to race with a clear conscience on the domestic circuit. An admirable stand by a rider with such talent and potential.
Malcolm was an exceptional track rider, which is certainly one of the reasons he was such a prolific winner on the road. He won seven gold medals at the national track championships in his final year as a Junior and I believe some of his records still stand more than two decades later.
His professional racing career had many ups and downs, mostly due to the coming and going of sponsors in a relatively fledgling market in South Africa. Once road cycling began to increase
in popularity among the masses though, the sponsorships became more consistent and he was able to ply a decent living from racing his bike, enabling him to become not only a South African cycling legend, but also a South African hero.
Malcolm’s family clearly played a big role in supporting him, initially his parents and more recently his wife, Jackie. No man can be as successful as Malcolm has without that consistent support, so it’s fitting that he acknowledges the extent of their support in this book.
Malcolm has done a great job in creating his own professional team in recent years, bringing new sponsors to the sport and increasing the opportunities for young riders – including young black riders – to have a more defined path to success.
While truly impressive, Malcolm Lange’s career is also rather unique in that he left the ranks of Junior racer just as South Africa was readmitted to the international sports arena following years of apartheid-induced isolation.
Malcolm is outspoken and honest and while that may not sit well with some, it’s helped him become the success that he is. His omission from selection for the 1996 Olympic Games still stands as one of the great blemishes against the sport’s governing body in South Africa. He never backed down then and he’s still not backing down in his quest for a better sport for professional riders.
