Cycling
Russian teams banned from international cycling
(Paris) The Russian and Belarusian teams have been excluded from the cycling events, the international federation (UCI) announced on Tuesday, which notably withdrew its UCI status from the Russian formation Gazprom / RusVelo.
The only high-level Russian formation in the international peloton was soon to participate in three events on the world calendar, Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-Sanremo in Italy, the Tour of Catalonia in Spain.
PHOTO GIUSEPPE CACACE, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The Russian and Belarusian teams have been excluded from the cycling events, the international federation (UCI) announced on Tuesday, which notably withdrew its UCI status from the Russian formation Gazprom / RusVelo.
The UCI management committee has also closed the door, with immediate effect, to national teams or selections from Russia and Belarus in all events on the international calendar.
On Friday, the UCI condemned “with the greatest firmness the violation of international law and Ukrainian territorial integrity”.
The federation chaired by Frenchman David Lappartient explained that it was applying “the strong decisions” taken by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which recommended Monday to ban Russians and Belarusians from sports competitions.
“The UCI, which remains a politically neutral organization, deplores that the decisions of its government may impact Russian and Belarusian athletes, but we must be firm in defending the Olympic values,” said the body.
The Gazprom-Rusvelo team, which evolves in the second world division, is made up of 21 riders, nine of whom are of Russian nationality alongside seven Italians.
The formation, which has already participated in the Giro (in 2016 and 2017), recently competed in the UAE Tour with, in the key, a stage victory for the young Czech Mathias Vacek (19 years old).
The UCI is also committed “to welcoming Ukrainian athletes to the World Cycling Center (WCC)”, its education and training center based in Aigle, Switzerland.
The UCI, which forbade the organizers from inviting Russian and Belarusian club, regional or mixed teams, on the other hand authorized license holders from the two countries to take part in the events on the calendar, “provided that they are registered in a UCI team” neither Russian nor Belarusian.
“Any participation by Russian or Belarusian athletes must be in a neutral capacity”, without reference to the two countries, added the federation which wanted to take into account “the contractual rights of the riders and teams concerned” and “not to unfairly penalize teams ” other countries.
In the WorldTour, the first world division, only two riders are of Russian nationality.
Aleksandr Vlasov runs for German team Bora and Pavel Sivakov, who grew up in France and took a stand last week against the war in Ukraine, wears the colors of British team Ineos.
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Sophia Jhon is a sports journalist and author. He has worked as a news editor for Sportish and is now a sport columnist for the same publication. Alberta’s professional interests lie largely in sports news, with an emphasis on English football. He has also written articles on other sporting topics.