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The E3 Harelbeke billboard poster that has been withdrawn.
Photo by: TWITTER |
The Belgian cycling race E3 Harelbeke "has been forced to withdraw what appears to be an overtly sexist billboard poster promoting the 2015 event" after criticism from the Int'l Cycling Union (UCI), the country's leading equality organization and on social media, according to the London TELEGRAPH.
The billboard poster of a cyclist's hand "moving to squeeze or pinch a woman's backside is supposed to poke fun at the events of '13, when Slovakian rider Peter Sagan pretended to pat the bottom of a 'podium girl' during the race."
Sagan won the E3 Harelbeke last year and the '15 poster is accompanied by the slogan, "Who will 'pinch' the Harelbeke this year?" Belgium's Institute for the Equality between Men and Women "was also far from amused" and said that the billboard "violated anti-discrimination legislation tabled in 2007." IEMW co-Dir Liesbet Stevens:
"The slogan confirms the cyclist's intention to squeeze the girl's bum and thus encourages cyclists in general to do the same." The E3 Harelbeke organizers "have a history of controversial promotion of its event," including using in '11 a poster of the Belgian Playboy model Gaëlle Garcia Diaz lying in grass with silhouettes of cyclists riding up and down the contours of her naked body (
TELEGRAPH, 2/25).
