Article by Alexandru Tomuțiu – published Tuesday, October 14, 2025 7:57 pm / Updated Tuesday, October 14, 2025 20:01
The Burgos Burpellet BH Spanish team has achieved a remarkable performance in the Asian circuit, occupying all three places on the podium in the general ranking of Mentougou Tour, from Beijing. Clement Alleno, Carlos Garcia Pierna and Antonio Angulo were the protagonists, but what should have been an excellent moment in the history of the team turned into a huge confusion, one of its cyclists being expelled and quickly leaving the country.
The cyclist in question is Mario Aparticio, 25 years old, who woke up in the center of an endless wave of critics on Chinese social networks. The controversy started with a post that the Spaniard made, where, next to the map of the stage and the data of the race, placed the emoji of a pig near the flag of China.
The post that started the scandal
Posting Mario Aparticio
The local press, controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, immediately reported the case, writing: “A Spanish cyclist has published inadequate content on social networks, joining the Chinese national flag with the pork head, which triggered a great controversy.”
The negative interpretation spread rapidly. “Some Chinese internets living in Spain have reported that the cyclist has tried to make an offensive association, because in Spanish the word shell, pig, is often used as a pejorative term. It was an insult to our nation,” said another newspaper.
The Chinese users dedicated themselves to research the historian of Apăcioică on the social network and found that, in other races, he only published the flag of the country, without any additional emoji, which was considered an additional proof of a clear coarse intent. “
The post was deleted, but it was already too late. The organizers of the Mentougou tour disqualified the athlete, justifying the decision by the fact that the post is “an inadequate comment that pays attention to the sports spirit, prejudice the image of the event and has a negative social impact.”
In a statement for the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, the Burgos team defended on the cyclist, claiming that the situation was removed from the context. “Mario published the pig emoji as an internal joke for the colleague who had won the stage, Carlos Garcia Pierna, something without wickedness and without any connection with the Chinese people. It was just an unhappy coincidence,” the team said.
The situation has quickly climbed
“Numerous comments began to appear on his profile of Strava and Chinese social networks and even many death threats, a completely out of control. After that, the organizers and the jury decided to disqualify the cyclist,” the team explained, adding that they tried to clarify the misunderstanding. “The cyclist has already left the country and everything has been resolved.”
This was not the first time diplomatic incidents took place during cycling races.
Recently, the German cyclist Vânzent Dorn, from the Bike Aid team, has generated a lot of controversy after the Tour of Lake Poyang, when he made a posting by telling his experience: “Obviously, China is not my favorite country, because it lacks freedom of expression and democratic standards.”
The agent of another cyclist in the same team, Oliver Mattheis, contacted the director of a Chinese team to discuss a possible transfer. The response of the Chinese director, distributed on social networks, was aggressive and included insults and threats. The tension would have been aggravated by a “joke” by Mattheis, who wrote offensive words on a gifts bag from the event.
