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Now the Colombian men cop internet ridicule — or do they?

Mainstream media misidentifies another pale team uniform

As the outrage over a badly-lit shot of the IDRD-Bogotá Humana-San Mateo-Solgar women's team at the Giro Toscana rumbles on, the mainstream media's coverage took an even more bizarre turn when the Mirror, among many others, wrongly identified another pale team kit as the Colombian men's team uniform.

We thought things had got as bad as they could when BBC  Sport put a censor bar over the pic, but now the Mirror has found what it thinks is a picture of the Colombian men's team:

Except it's not. That's the 2010 Footon-Servetto-Fuji kit, which was much-lampooned at the time. Here's a closer look:

You can understand the Mirror's confusion. Footon-Servetto-Fuji was a Spanish team and they speak Spanish in Colombia, so they must be the same thing, right? Never mind the five thousand miles between Madrid and Bogota and the small matter of the Atlantic Ocean in the way.

The Mirror's story claims the "the South American country has form for near-the-knuckle kit - as this men's cycling team's outfit from 2010 shows" but that smacks of hasty editing after people pointed out it wasn't new. The caption on the team presentation image still reads: "Shocker: This is the new Columbian men's cycling team kit".

Extra points for spelling 'Colombian' wrong too.

This is the Colombian national team kit, as used at the Tour de l'Avenir recently:

White shorts, though? Maybe Colombia does have form after all.

As for the kit wrongly identified as the Colombian men's gear, Footon-Servetto was the 2010 incarnation of the team run by Mauro Gianetti that started in 2004 as Saunier Duval-Prodir.

The same pair of sponsors now supports the women's Servetto Footon team, which, as you can see below, has a rather more sedate take on finding a place on the kit for that gold colour that causes problems in certain light.

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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6 comments

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Some Fella | 10 years ago
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The Colombian national team jersey is a smasher.

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Tony Farrelly replied to Some Fella | 10 years ago
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Some Fella wrote:

The Colombian national team jersey is a smasher.

So long as you don't have to wash it… wonder if they have a national cycle-cross team?

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NeilG83 | 10 years ago
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Same mistake in the Metro too. Poor research, bad spelling and plagiarism. Doesn't say much for British journalism.

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edster99 replied to NeilG83 | 10 years ago
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NeilG83 wrote:

Same mistake in the Metro too. Poor research, bad spelling and plagiarism. Doesn't say much for British journalism.

There is nothing to be said for about 95% of british journalism, unfortunately. Most of it is lazy and uninformed.

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truffy replied to edster99 | 10 years ago
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edster99 wrote:
NeilG83 wrote:

Same mistake in the Metro too. Poor research, bad spelling and plagiarism. Doesn't say much for British journalism.

There is nothing to be said for about 95% of british journalism, unfortunately. Most of it is lazy and uninformed.

And then it gets rehashed on road.cc!

Quote:

Now the Colombian men cop internet ridicule — or do they?

Great headline for a non-story.

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nicholassmith replied to NeilG83 | 10 years ago
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NeilG83 wrote:

Same mistake in the Metro too. Poor research, bad spelling and plagiarism. Doesn't say much for British journalism.

The Metro is a cut down version of the Daily Mail basically, published by the same DMG Media group so they reuse stories with a few tweaks to the copy.

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