Amaury Pierron and Commencal 21 team manager, Charlie Julia Barthe have both issued an apology on their social media. This follows an Instagram story Charlie shared on Thursday showing Amaury’s hair with cornrows and overlaid with a caption many of their followers consider racist.
Amaury, admitted in his apology that he is in the public eye, and needs to be mindful of what he’s putting out there.
As one of the top downhill racers on the circuit, he’s recently returned from some bad injuries sustained in August 2020. Over the last few years, he’s firmly cemented himself as a consistent podium threat. In 2018 he won three rounds of the DH World Cup, narrowly missing a fourth, and took home the overall. In 2019, he again won three rounds but narrowly missed out on the overall to Loic Bruni.
This year he took third in Leogang before injuring himself at one of the French DH cup rounds last month. He was unable to race at the last round in Les Gets, and it’s not yet known if he will be fit for Maribor in a few weeks.
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In the story, Charlie shared a picture of Amaury Pierron and his new cornrows with the caption “@amaurypierron4 next level of n****nation.” (Asterisks are our own although the screen grab of the post has obscured the full text) Amaury then shared this to his own story and added, “rap carrer in the making.” The story was set to N***a N***a N***a, a song by Bobnlarry, that has the letters of the title masked on Apple Music and Shazam although not on Spotify, YouTube or Instagram.
The pair have both said they were unaware of the implications and true meaning of the words featured in their posts in their apology.
In our recent Trail Rippers story, the young riders teach us the importance of calling people out on their actions.
Their apologies were posted via their Stories, which will expire after 24 hours, rather than as a static posts.
Related Stories:
The TrailRippers: Asking You To Stand Up To Hate
British Cycling Introduces New Bursaries to Diversify Coaching Talent
British Cycling Reveals New Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Group
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