The Russian professional cyclist Pavel Sivakov has changed nation due to the war of aggression against Ukraine.
As the 24-year-old also has a French passport, he will ride under a different flag in future. This was announced by his team Ineos-Grenadiers following authorisation by the UCI. "I had wanted to ride as a Frenchman for some time and had submitted the application to the UCI. In view of what's happening in Ukraine right now, I wanted to speed things up," said Sivakov.
The tour specialist was born in Italy and his parents moved to France when he was one year old. "As I have said before, I am completely against this war and my thoughts are with the Ukrainian people," said Sivakov. He hopes for peace and a quick end to the suffering in Ukraine.
The UCI had excluded Russian and Belarusian teams from all races and tours, including the Gazprom-Rusvelo team. Individual professionals from the countries concerned in non-Russian or non-Belarusian teams are not affected. These include Sivakov and Aleksandr Vlasov, who rides for the German team Bora-hansgrohe.
Copyright 2022, dpa (www.dpa.de). All rights reserved
