A poster for the women’s Euskal Emakumeen Bira race has been pulled after it was deemed to be sexist. The Basque Women’s Institute issued the complaint, which resulted in the poster being taken down.
The poster in question features a short of last year’s race winner Katarzyna Niewiadoma aiming a kiss at the camera. President of the Biscayne Cycling Federation (Federación Vizcaína de Ciclismo) Agustín Ruiz defended the poster, saying that he didn’t believe it was sexist, but chose to take it down to avoid conflict.
"We are changing the picture so as not to not lead to the submission of any complaints against the Emakunde and things get any worse," Ruiz told the website mugalari.info, adding that "as an organization we want to avoid conflict."
The Euskal Emakumeen Bira will take place between April 13-17. Katarzyna Niewiadoma beat Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio to the 2015 title.
Unfinished business for Boeckmans
Six months after his horrible accident at the Vuelta a Espana, Kris Boeckmans (Lotto-Soudal) has been back to Spain and taken on some of the terrain he was not able to last August. On Friday, Boeckmans posted a photo of himself on Twitter at the top of the Cumbre de Sol climb with the caption “Made it to the finish… Where is everybody?”
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Boeckmans never made it to Cumbre de Sol at the 2015 Vuelta a Espana after crashing the previous stage. Boeckman’s injuries were so severe as a result of the incident that he was taken to hospital and put into an induced coma. It would be almost a month before he left hospital. He is continuing his recovery and his racing return is yet to be announced.
Banana slip for Cavendish
Belgian cycling festival KVKFietst has used the image of Mark Cavendish slipping on the podium after winning the 2008 Scheldeprijs as part of their advertising campaign. A video on the festival’s Twitter page showed a clip of former rider Nico Mattan throwing a banana skin on the ground and laughing at the Manxman’s misfortune before munching on the banana.
Cavendish won the 2008 Scheldeprijs after Tom Boonen celebrated too early. It was his second consecutive win at the Belgian race and third overall.
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An-li Kachelhoffer (Lotto-Soudal Ladies) claimed her first ever South African national road race title after a late attack. Lise Olivier (Bizkaia-Durango) came home seven seconds after Kachelhoffer to take the silver medal, with Anriette Schoeman taking bronze.
“The race was hard and the Clover team really put the pressure on today,” said Kachelhoffer. “I had a set race plan and I know the form that they had from our earlier races this season, and it really was a race of attrition. On my final attack I looked back and no one followed and hoped I could carry it through to the end. I feel so blessed that I could take the title.”
Three-time champion Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio had a difficult build-up to her title defence, after falling ill and missing out on the time trial earlier in the week. Moolman-Pasio had a small dig off the front of the penultimate lap of the race but finished the day in sixth.
The women’s road race at the South African championships took place over seven laps of an undulating 18km course. It was an aggressive race with multiple attacks, including several from the eventual winner. Kachelhoffer made her first serious move towards the end of the penultimate lap but it was on the final climb that he she made her race-winning move.
