{"id":213016,"date":"2025-10-14T19:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T19:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/213016\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T19:13:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T19:13:08","slug":"spanish-rider-kicked-out-of-chinese-race-after-really-stupid-emoji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/213016\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish rider kicked out of Chinese race after really stupid emoji"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Spanish cyclist has been kicked outta the Tour of Mentougou in Beijing after a social media post triggered a fierce backlash in China.It unleashed accusations of disrespect and even death threats. The incident, first reported by El Mundo<\/a>, has overshadowed what had been a strong showing by Spain\u2019s Burgos Burpellet BH team.<\/p>\n

The controversy centres on Mario Aparicio. He\u2019s a 25-year-old rider from Aranda de Duero, who finished seventh in Sunday\u2019s opening stage.<\/p>\n

After the race, Aparicio shared a map of the route on social media. Annnnnd he added the Chinese flag, alongside an emoji of a pig\u2019s head. The image was quickly deleted, but not before it circulated on Chinese platforms such as Weibo, where it was perceived by many users as a deliberate insult to China.<\/p>\n

The controversy<\/p>\n

According to the state-affiliated outlet The Paper<\/a>, \u201ca Spanish road cyclist posted inappropriate content on social media, juxtaposing the national flag of China with a pig\u2019s head emoji. Sparking great controversy.\u201d Other Chinese media outlets claimed that some users in Spain interpreted the post as invoking the term cochina.\u00a0 For the uniniated, that\u2019s a pejorative in Spanish.<\/p>\n

Within hours, race organizers issued a statement disqualifying Aparicio. \u201cThe publication on his personal social networks constitutes an inappropriate comment that violates the spirit of sport, damages the image of the event and has a negative social impact,\u201d the Tour of Mentougou committee said. They added that his actions contravened event regulations and the sporting code of ethics.<\/p>\n

The post was not popular on Chinese social media. One widely shared Weibo comment demanded \u201ca public apology for his insult to China.\u201d The uproar quickly escalated, and Aparicio reportedly faced a flood of abusive messages and death threats.<\/p>\n

However, his team strongly rejected any malicious intent. \u201cMario posted the pig emoji as a joke towards the teammate who had won the stage, something without malice and unrelated to the Chinese people,\u201d Burgos Burpellet told El Mundo. \u201cIt was an unfortunate coincidence. People misinterpreted it because the Chinese flag appeared alongside it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team said they had explained the situation to organisers and confirmed Aparicio has already left the country. \u201cThere was no intention to offend China\u2026 The situation is resolved,\u201d a statement added.<\/p>\n

Well, glad that\u2019s settled. Stage 2 goes down on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Despite the scandal, Burgos Burpellet completed the race successfully, with Cl\u00e9ment Alleno securing overall victory ahead of teammates Garc\u00eda Pierna and Antonio Angulo.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Results powered by FirstCycling.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Spanish cyclist has been kicked outta the Tour of Mentougou in Beijing after a social media post…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[103443,49,48,95,635,5522,82,103444],"class_list":["post-213016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-aranda-de-duero","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-china","tag-cycling","tag-racism","tag-sports","tag-tour-of-mentougou"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}