Team Sky has confirmed that Gianni Moscon used racially abusive language during an argument with Team FDJ’s Kevin Reza at the Tour of Romandie and says that the Italian will be dealt with internally, but only after the race has finished.
Cycling News reports that a confrontation between Moscon and Reza could be seen in the background of a video posted to Twitter by Team Sky following the stage three win by Moscon’s team-mate and countryman, Elia Viviani.
Some very happy @TeamSky riders after that win from @eliaviviani. Big leadout, big finish! #TDR2017 pic.twitter.com/rnQgSfW30K
— Team Sky (@TeamSky) April 28, 2017
Without naming anyone, Reza’s teammate Sebastian Reichenbach later tweeted about an incident of racial abuse.
Choqué d’entendre encore des imbéciles utiliser des insultes racistes dans le peloton pro. Vous êtes une honte pour notre sport. #TDR2017
— Seb Reichenbach (@reichenbach_seb) April 28, 2017
Team Sky have since confirmed that Moscon was responsible and sporting director Nicolas Portal described the incident as ‘unacceptable’.
Reza is said to have accepted an apology from Moscon, but the Italian remains in the race.
The UCI has not yet commented.
-1024x680.jpg "“Clear anti-cyclist bias”: Lawsuit filed against Toronto police after cop doored cyclist… before ticketing rider over incident")
23 thoughts on “Team Sky rider Gianni Moscon apologises for racially abusive language”
Either Sky should remove him
Either Sky should remove him from the race or either the organisers/the uci should. Ludicrous.
atlaz wrote:
If this is true then absolutely agree although a longer term suspension would be more appropriate than just this race. Has to be zero tolerance.
He needs to be chucked from
He needs to be chucked from the race ASAP. It’s a sad day for cycling if even football takes a more positive stand on preventing racism.
shame on Moscon and shame on
shame on Moscon and shame on sky if they dont throw him out.
If accurate then Sky should
If accurate then Sky should withdraw him pending ucI investigation and then immediate and lengthy suspension . Sadly cycling remains one of the few remaining sports with underrepresentation of BME’s and any lazy tolerance of racism or prejudice of any form is completely unacceptable.
Who is responsible for
Who is responsible for discipline and punishments, the team or UCI? Yes, it s unacceptable and action is required but it should be done once and correctly. One crime and one punishment.
Terrible reaction from Sky,
Terrible reaction from Sky, UCI, and the race organisers. Should be instant expulson and ban.
I love how oblivious the rest
I love how oblivious the rest of the sky teams were
Alankk wrote:
White folks oblivious to racism, what a surprise.
Big Softy wrote:
Re-read your own post, then go look in the mirror and you’ll see what a racist looks like.
Jeffree wrote:
White folks oblivious to racism, what a surprise.
— Big Softy Re-read your own post, then go look in the mirror and you’ll see what a racist looks like.— Alankk
Classic “actually white people are the real victims of racism” crybaby post. 99% chance this guy makes jokes about snowflakes when anybody else is offended.
1-Not the first time it
1-Not the first time it happened to Reza. Michael Albasini also threw a racial slur at Reza in the Tour de France a couple years ago. Whatever happened with that punishment will likely set precedence.
2-This happened right in front of the whole Team Sky and gathered spectators. It shouldn’t be hard to figure out exactly went down and action should be quick.
3-Completely irrelevant note, looking at pictures, Reza is built like a tank! We need to see more info about how he can ride at top level in the hills….give us big boned mortals some hope.
Doping I can understand and
Doping I can understand and can even sympathise with on a good day. Racism gets no pass. Not even an iota. Any team that has any respectability will take a zero tolerance approach and suspend pending investigation immediately.
SKY’s response shows they think this isn’t that serious and will try to ride it out.
Pretty disgusting if true. I
Pretty disgusting if true. I agree that the correct procedure should be followed but whether that is Sky or the UCI he should already be out of the race and facing a ban.
So Brailsford condones this
So Brailsford condones this behavior by keeping Moscon racing, yet Portal states unacceptable behavior.
I’m embarrassed to wear the
I’m embarrassed to wear the sky branded kit I own.
Pathetic actions taken from the team.
^^Bunch of Marxist vultures
^^Bunch of Marxist vultures pecking on a corpse.
None of you know what was said. Give due process a chance to work.
Valbrona wrote:
Well saying the riders who actually heard the exchange were disgusted about it (and I’m guessing they aren’t all card carrying members of the Fourth International), and Sky and Moscon have already admitted that something racist was said, I don’t think we need to know the exact words used to know that something very unacceptable happened.
Plus I don’t think road.cc is really full of people discussing class consciousness, control of the means of production, the theory of the surplus value of labour, permanent revolution (although that is probably more Trotskyite I suppose) or dialectic materialism, so your choice of the word “Marxist” kind of indicates you don’t really know what it means…
On a more serious note though- for a team funded by a communications empire, Sky are really bad at foreseeing the most obvious PR disasters that they find themselves embroiled in. Sending Moscon home would have meant he would have been taking the (deserved) brunt of this, and now suddenly the message going out is that Sky is OK with racism, moving from individual to collective responsibility.
MartyMcCann wrote:
Cultural Marxism … aka. political correctness.
The type of world where something like not making eye contact with someone can be viewed as ‘racist behaviour’.
I will be the judge of whether someone’s utterences were racist. And witchhunting is not my thing.
Valbrona wrote:
Good to see you’re raising your game in the ‘spout shite’ stakes, since Willo returned. You know you’ll get more reaction on the Guardian site though? And there are articles about cycling there, too.
ITT: Scumbag fash versus
ITT: Scumbag fash versus scumbag SJW’s. Back to reddit with the lot of you.
Gizzard wrote:
He said, starting his comment with ITT.
unconstituted wrote:
Never used an imageboard, have you?