Olympic coach forced to apologise after vile racist ‘camel’ comment to cyclist

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The German cycling coach and director of the nation's cycling federation Patrick Moster has been forced to apologise after he was overheard shouting racist remarks at one of his riders during the men's individual time trial at the Tokyo Olympics.

Moster was caught on the live coverage of the event running behind rider Niklas Arndtshouting "Hold die Kameltreiber! Hol die Kameltreiber!"

This translates to 'catch the camel drivers' and was screamed as Arnst rode behind a pair of cyclists from Algeria and Eritrea.

During the German television coverage, ARD commentator Florian Ness immediately condemned Moster, labelling the remarks as 'totally wrong'.

Moster is a 54-year-old former professional cyclist that raced domestically during the 1990s and now works with the national federation as both its director and as a coach.

He was quick to issue an apology for his actions after the moment was caught on live TV, admitting that "in the heat of the moment and with the overall burden we have here at the moment, I have missed my choice of words.

"I am so sorry, I can only sincerely apologise. I didn't want to disrespect anyone," he stated after the conclusion of the event.

Commentator Ness could hardly believe what he had heard from the experienced coach as he reported on the event for German TV: "if I heard that correctly he said 'get the camel drivers!' Something like that has no place in sport.

"This is absolutely underground. Sorry, I can't think of anything… that is unworthy."

Moster's actions also drew condemnation from the President of the German Olympic Committee, Alfons Hormann, who said in a statement that "Team Germany stands for the adherence to the Olympic values of respect, fairplay and tolerance and lives them in all of their sporting competitons.

"It is important that Patrick Moster apologised immediately after the competition. We will seek a personal conversation with him today and deal with the situation."

At present, it is unclear what punishment Moster will face for his racist remarks, whilst his rider Arndt finished 19th out of 39 riders, having come 54th of 85 finishers in the men's road race on Saturday.

The time trial event was won by Slovenian rider Primoz Roglic, with Team GB's Geraint Thomas and Tao Geoghegan Hart finishing in 12th and 29th, respectively.

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  • Olympics
  • Tokyo 2020 Olympics

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