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Cyclists take to streets of Sarajevo to mark centenary of assassination that sparked WWI

ASO sponsor mass participation ride aimed at underlining "message of peace and unity"...

Cyclists have taken to the streets of Sarajevo in their thousands to commemorate the centenary next Saturday June 28 of the assassination in the city of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, an event that gave rise to the First World War.

The mass participation ride was sponsored by Tour de France organisers ASO, and preceded the Sarajevo Grand Prix, which saw 140 elite cyclists participate on a route that took in a number of locations of fighting during the Bosnian War of 1992-95, reports the BBC.

Among those taking part in the recreational ride was the French ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Roland Gilles and his partner, Claudia Carceroni de Carvalho, who has won national championships in Brazil and France and multiple masters world titles.

Speaking to Reuters, Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme said the ride "is an event which gathers and unites the people, and the message we are sending from here is the message of peace and unity.”

The agency added that it is the only event commemorating the outbreak of World War One to have been organised jointly by Bosnia-Herzegovina’s two main regions, divided largely across ethnic lines.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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leqin | 9 years ago
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Helmets save lives... I just started World War III  19

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