The Estonian Madis Mihkels and the Belgian Gerben Thijssen will not start the race which takes place in China from Thursday. The first mimed slanted eyes, the second filmed the act before broadcasting it on social networks.
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On the eve of the big start of the Tour of Guangxi, the last UCI race of the season (from October 12 to 17), the Intermarché-Circus-Wanty team sanctioned two of its riders after the broadcast of a racist scene on the networks social. Estonian Madis Mihkels, 20, was filmed by Belgian Gerben Thijssen miming slanted eyes as they prepared to compete in the Chinese event.
Initially, the Belgian team announced that it was only excluding the author of the gesture. But, questioned by several Internet users, she made the decision to also sanction the other runner, guilty of having relayed the gesture on her social networks in a video since deleted. “We deeply regret the behavior of our runners Madis Mihkels and Gerben Thijssen and the images that appeared on social networks (…). We have decided to withdraw them from the event and will now analyze the disciplinary consequences to be given to this incident “, the training said in a press release.
The World Tour team (highest level in the world) then apologized “to the Chinese people and fans, to the government of the province of Guangxi, to the Cycling Federation of China and to all parties involved in the organization of the Tour of Guangxi for the image conveyed of our sport”. The Tour of Guangxi, which takes place in an autonomous region in southern China, is scheduled to start from Beihai on Thursday and arrive next Tuesday in Guilin.