Cycling-European championships in Belarus cancelled by governing body

DongKook Pharmaceutical

27/05/2021 13:26

May 27 (Reuters) - Next month's European track championships
that were to be held in Minsk have been cancelled due to the
volatile situation in Belarus, Europe's cycling governing body
(UEC) said on Thursday.
    Belarus on Sunday scrambled a warplane to escort a Ryanair
passenger jet carrying Roman Protasevich, a journalist critical
of Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, in an act denounced
by Western countries as "state piracy".
    The Elite Track European Championships were scheduled for
June 23-27 but the UEC Management Board was forced to
reconsider. Germany pulled out on Tuesday and pushed for an
"alternative solution".  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N2NC13A
    "We have recently been monitoring the situation with the
Belarus Cycling Federation which has now developed into an
international debate," UEC president Enrico Della Casa said in a
statement.
    "Today, during the Management Board meeting, we have decided
to cancel the event in Minsk.
    "We are already working on finding an alternative solution
to enable the riders from our 50 national federations to compete
in this season's continental event."
    Belarus has been stripped of major sporting events because
of a crackdown on anti-government protesters there.
    Minsk was originally supposed to co-host the Ice Hockey
World Championship with Riga this month but was stripped of the
right to do so because of political unrest following a contested
presidential election last August and the coronavirus pandemic.

 (Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber in Moscow and Rohith
Nair in Bengaluru;
Editing by Toby Davis)
 ((Rohith.Nair@thomsonreuters.com;))