{"id":200479,"date":"2025-10-14T23:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T23:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/200479\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T23:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T23:07:09","slug":"controversy-in-china-burgos-rider-expelled-from-race-after-viral-strava-post-sparks-outrage-and-death-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/200479\/","title":{"rendered":"Controversy in China! Burgos rider expelled from race after viral Strava post sparks outrage and death threats"},"content":{"rendered":"

The road cycling season may be drawing to a close, but the final week has not been without controversy. The 2025 Tour de Mentougou ended in emphatic fashion for Burgos Burpellet BH<\/a>, who dominated the general classification with three riders on the final podium, including overall winner Cl\u00e9ment Alleno. Yet the Spanish ProTeam\u2019s success was overshadowed by a troubling incident involving its star rider, Mario Aparicio<\/a>.Aparicio, who finished seventh in the race\u2019s opening stage, was disqualified and banned from the Chinese event following a post on the activity-tracking platform Strava<\/a> that sparked outrage online \u2014 and even led to death threats.<\/p>\n

The controversy stemmed from a seemingly innocuous upload: a screenshot of his Stage 1 ride, accompanied by a pig emoji placed alongside the Chinese national flag. The post quickly went viral on Chinese social media, where it was interpreted as a deliberate insult.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“It was an insult to our nation. In other competitions, the Spanish athlete has only posted the flag of the host country, with no emoji \u2014 this clearly shows an intent to offend,” reported a Chinese outlet, as quoted by El Mundo.<\/p>\n

Official Statement from Race Organisers<\/p>\n

In response, the Tour de Mentougou released a formal statement confirming Aparicio\u2019s disqualification:<\/p>\n

“The publication on his personal social media constitutes an inappropriate comment that undermines the spirit of sport, damages the image of the event, and has a negative social impact. After reviewing the content \u2014 which was subsequently deleted \u2014 it was concluded that the rider\u2019s actions breached race regulations and the ethical code of conduct.”<\/p>\n

Team Response: \u201cA Misunderstanding Taken Out of Context\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to El Mundo, Burgos-BH defended their rider, insisting the emoji was never intended as a slight against China. “Mario added the pig emoji as an inside joke aimed at a teammate who had won the stage. There was absolutely no malicious intent, nor was it directed at the Chinese people. It was an unfortunate coincidence that the Chinese flag appeared next to it,” a team spokesperson explained.<\/p>\n

“The post was quickly misinterpreted, and a flood of abusive messages followed on Strava and Chinese social media \u2014 including multiple death threats. It spiralled very quickly.”<\/p>\n

Despite attempts by the team to clarify the context, organisers upheld their decision to expel Aparicio from the race. “We spoke with the organisers to explain the situation and make clear that there was no intention to offend. The rider has since left the country, and as far as we\u2019re concerned, the matter is now closed,” the statement concluded.<\/p>\n

\"Mario<\/p>\n

Mario Aparicio’s post on Strava<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The road cycling season may be drawing to a close, but the final week has not been without…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-200479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}