German cycling sports director to be sent home after making racial slur

Germany’s Olympic Committee announced on Thursday afternoon that their cycling sports director Patrick Moster will be sent home from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics after making racist remarks during the road race time trial.

The German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) released a statement to announce the punishment for Moster who referred other cyclists as ‘camel drivers’. Entitled ‘Moster is no longer part of the team leader in Tokyo’, the statement said that: “The head of the delegation of Team D has decided that Patrick Moster will no longer perform his duties as sub-team leader for cycling in Team D.

Former national coach Moster was caught on video using the racial slur and claimed to have made the comments ‘in the heat of the moment’ and issued an apology. The under-fire director made the shocking outburst about cyclists Azzedine Lagab from Algeria and Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier from Eritrea.

The statement continued: “This decision was preceded by a detailed consultation of the delegation management and a renewed hearing of the person concerned, in which both the process and the consequences for Team D were discussed.

“We remain convinced that his public apology for the racist remarks he made yesterday is sincere. With this derailment, however, Mr. Moster violated the Olympic values. Fair play, respect and tolerance are non-negotiable for Team D,“ said DOSB President and Tokyo delegation leader Alfons Hörmann.

This is not the first controversy a German official has been caught up in after judo coach Claudiu Pusa, from Romania, forcibly shook and slapped his athlete Martyna Trajdos twice in a scene which stunned viewers on Tuesday.

The clip went viral and Trajdos, 32, took to Instagram to try to defend her coach by saying that she asked her coach to slap her to fire her up for her contest.

Former European Games winner Trajdos lost her only contest at Tokyo 2020 to teenager Ozbas Szofi, 19, of Hungary.

Judo’s world governing body said it “addressed a serious official warning towards the German coach, concerning the bad behaviour during the competition.

“Judo is an educational sport and as such cannot tolerate such behaviour, which goes against the moral code.”

The pre-fight slap is actually a common ritual in judo and is common even in high school judo in Japan.

Judo’s International Federation felt compelled to intervene to try to soften the social media narrative in this instance, despite incidents of this nature previously going unpunished, as the clip went viral all over social media and shocked those watching who were unfamiliar with the sport.