Categories: Entertainment

Racist Cyclist Who Called African Champion ‘N*gger’ During Race Forced To Donate to African Charity

LE HAVRE, FRANCE – JULY 09: Daniel Teklehaimanot of Eritrea and MTN-Qhubeka celebrates as he is awarded the polka-dot jersey on the podium after stage six of the 2015 Tour de France, a 191.5km stage between Abbeville and Le Havre, on July 9, 2015 in Le Havre, France. (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

This week, Pro-Continental team CCC-Sprandi-Polkowice Belarusian rider Branislau Samoilau racially abused MTN Qhubeka cyclist Natnael Berhane during a Tour de France race. As punishment, Samoilau will make a donation to African youth, but the racist incident is reportedly one of many, reports the Telegraph.

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MTN Qhubeka is the first African team to compete in the Tour de France in about 65 years.

And while African teams have been absent for several decades, that didn’t stop fellow Eritrean rider Daniel Teklehaimanot (pictured) from making cycling history on Wednesday by becoming the first Black African to become the best climber from Abbeville to Le Havre’s sixth stage on Thursday.

The overall potential of the team — and the win — appears to have made several of their European peers combative.

Case in point, on Wednesday, Samoilau reportedly called Eritrean champion Berhane (pictured) a “f*cking n*gger” as they competed.

The unacceptable offense caused MTN Qhubeka to request that Samoilau be removed from the Tour of Austria, with Qhubeka team principal Douglas Ryder adding, “We, as a team, do not tolerate that kind of behaviour.

And CCC spokesman remarked, “In the heat of the battle some words have been said by our rider, which were very unfortunate and unacceptable.”

Instead of throwing Samoilau out of the race, though, he has been forced to donate a month’s salary to Qhubeka’s charity, which provides Africans with bikes.

And while that incident seems to have been resolved, Ryder explained that the offense is actually one of many.

“Yesterday one of the riders from another team said to Natnael Berhane ‘get out of the way, you f*cking n*gger.’ Just outrageous,” Ryder said.

“And one of the biggest teams in the world last year in the Tour of Spain, when we trying to bring one of our riders to the front going in to the mountains, said, ‘You guys don’t belong here, f*ck off to the back of the bunch.’

“We have riders like Tyler and Edvald, riders who are well-respected in the peloton, and they are their team-mates, and they say, ‘Hey guys, come on, these guys deserve to be here.’”

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Abena Agyeman-Fisher

Abena Agyeman-Fisher is the Editor-in-Chief of Face2Face Africa. Most recently, she worked for Interactive One as the Senior Editor of NewsOne, she worked for AOL as the News Programming Manager of Black Voices, which later became HuffPo Black Voices, and for the New York Times Company as an Associate Health Editor. Abena, a Spelman College graduate, has been published in Al Jazeera, the Daily Beast, New Jersey’s The Star-Ledger, the Grio, BlackVoices, West Orange Patch, About.com, the Source, Vibe, Vibe Vixen, Jane, and Upscale Magazines. She has interviewed top celebrities, icons, and politicians, such as First Lady Michelle Obama, Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett, Civil Rights activist and diplomat Andrew Young, comedian Bill Cosby, Grammy Award-winning singer Jill Scott, actress and singer Queen Latifah, Olympic Gold winner Cullen Jones, international supermodel Alek Wek, and five-division world champion boxer Floyd Mayweather. Most recently, she served as the First Lady’s press reporter during President Barack Obama’s U.S.-Africa Summit, Young African Leaders Institute event, and the 2013 presidential trip to Senegal, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Tanzania. Abena is also a 2015 International Women's Media Foundation Africa Great Lakes Fellow, where she reported on women candidates and Chinese sweatshops in Tanzania for CNN and Refinery29.

View Comments

  • Racism isn't taken seriously-a months salary is an insult ...well throw money at the blacks why don't you after trampling on them is the message here...#ShameOnAllOfYou...

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