the E3 GP causes controversy after a drawing considered offensive for LGBT+

By Le Figaro with AFP

Published 1 hour ago, Updated 33 minutes ago

Wout Van Aert, driver used by the E3. Nico Vereecken / Photo News / Panoramic

The management of the event backed down after the publication of a drawing considered offensive to the LGBTQ community.

The organizers of the E3 GP, the Belgian event of the World Tour, had to remove from their site on Tuesday a caricature which showed Wout Van Aert crossing the finish line on a bike without a saddle, accompanied by an allusion to the LGBT+ community , according to the local press. This caricature referred to the victory of the 29-year-old Belgian rider last weekend at the cyclo-cross in Benidorm (Spain), during which he lost his saddle at the start of the last lap.

The controversy particularly focused on the comments accompanying it: “The LGBTQ community is very enthusiastic“, we could read while, in the background, there were laughing spectators behind an LGBTQ flag, with an additional equivocal comment “about (the) rainbow jersey of (Mathieu) van der Poel (world champion in the discipline) of course».

This publication was notably criticized by hundreds of Internet users who flooded the E3 Facebook page with negative comments. “What a sad level!», Also tweeted the Dutch journalist Thijs Zonneveld, a voice widely listened to in Belgium. On social networks, however, several dozen other Internet users invoked “the Charlie spirit» to denounce the “ambient wokism in Flanders».

Faced with the controversy generated, the organizers of E3 however decided to delete the publication before apologizing. “We didn’t want to offend anyone“, they wrote.

In the past, the organization of this event which takes place around Harelbeke (West Flanders) had been accused several times of sexism, notably in 2015. That year, they published a photo of a woman lifting her dress and partially revealing her buttocks with the message: “Who will pinch them in Harelbeke?» This was a reference to the inelegant gesture of Peter Sagan, who had pinched the buttocks of a hostess on the podium of the Tour of Flanders in 2013. E3, dress rehearsal of the Tour of Flanders, is scheduled on March 22.

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