Racism row ruins African landmark
ANOTHER dramatic day at the Tour de France, during which race leader Tony Martin abandoned the race with a fractured collarbone after a multi-rider pile-up and defending champion Vincenzo Nibali allegedly threw a bottle at new race leader Chris Froome, whom he accused of having caused the fall, ended in a racism controversy.
It was claimed that an MTN Qhubeka rider was called a “f***ing n***er” during Thursday’s fourth stage.
The South African team’s principal, Doug Ryder, claimed that the incident was far from a one-off, alleging further racist abuse and bullying from within the peloton towards his riders.
MTN Qhubeka, the first African team to compete at the Tour de France since the 1950s, had a bittersweet day. Their Eritrean rider Daniel Teklehaimanot made cycling history, becoming the first black African to wear a leader’s jersey at a grand tour when he claimed the polka dot jersey for best climber on the sixth stage from Abbeville to Le Havre.
But even as the team were wiping away tears of joy, they were simultaneously making representations to the UCI, cycling’s world governing body, to have Belarusian rider Branislau Samoilau, of Pro-Continental team CCC-Sprandi-Polkowice, thrown out of the Tour of Austria for alleged racial abuse of their Eritrean champion Natnael Berhane.
Samoilau is alleged to have called Berhane a “f***ing n***er” during the stage.
It is understood he has paid a month’s salary by way of apol- ogy to the Qhubeka charity, which aims to mobilise Africans by providing them with bikes.
A CCC-Sprandi-Polkowice spokesman did not deny the allegations. “In the heat of the battle, some words have been said by our rider which were unfortunate and unacceptable.
“We do not tolerate that kind of behaviour and the rider will suffer consequences. Before the next stage, the situation has been clarified between two teams and the riders, but we don’t want to get into details.”
Ryder claimed that his riders had regularly had to battle prejudice and bullying in professional cycling, with the team’s non-African signings such as Tyler Farrar and Edvald Boasson-Hagen having to step in on occasion.
“Yesterday [Thursday], one of the riders from another team said to Natnael Berhane ‘get out of the way, you effing n***er’. Just outrageous,” Ryder said.
“And one of the biggest teams in the world last year in the Tour of Spain, when we were trying to bring one of our riders to the front going into the mountains, said: ‘you guys don’t belong here, f*** off to the back of the bunch’. We have riders like Tyler and Edvald, who are well respected in the peloton, and they are their teammates, and they say, ‘Hey guys, come on, these guys deserve to be here’.”
Ryder added: “We have had massive support from the major team owners and bosses — guys like Shayne Bannan, Dave Brailsford, Viacheslav Ekimov. Those guys love this team. They believe they should be here. But some riders are struggling to grasp what we are doing.” — © ROUGH RIDE: Daniel Teklehaimanot created history, but his teammate is alleged to have been racially abused