Date: Monday, 29 July 2024
The almost all white, “eurocentric” Tour de France is considered the pinnacle of cycling competition world wide. Twenty one days of some 100 miles a day (160+K), almost 2,000 miles total in twenty four days makes it one of any sports most physically demanding contests.
In the last 111 years the Tour de France was won, either by points or time, by a white man. Hell, doesn't this prove white men are the toughest when you come down to it?
Then out of nowhere in this years Tour de France a black, African, Eritrean started winning stages. First stage 3, then stage 8 and again stage 12, forging a lead in points that Eritrean Tour de France newcomer BIniam Ghirmay would not relinquish, going on to win the Green Jersey having most points in the race.
To have a black, African and Eritrean at that, dominate all the white boys in points in what is supposed to be “their” race has got to hurt. The way the “winner” of the Tour de France is awarded to the rider with the shortest time for the entire tour almost rewards mediocrity. You don't have to win or place in any of the 21 stages to win the race, just do “well” in all and voila, you are the “winner”. So it doesn't matter how many stages you actually win, you may not “win” the Tour de France.
Especially to have a proud, nationalist Eritrean win the Green Jersey is a real slap in the face to white supremacy. To have Biniam Ghirmay dare to venture into the heart of Eurocentrism, into African colonialist France, with its Mafia crime family government, where the banks and industrialist vampires acquired their bloated wealth by sucking the blood of Africa, and show just who is best is an historical feat, though few in the west seem to even know about it.
After all the malicious slander the French colonialist mafia regime has spewed against Eritrea, and worse, the economic and political sanctions the French Bankster government helped enforce against one of the smallest countries in the world the sweeter Biniam's victory has become, not only for Eritrea but for Africans and freedom fighters all over the world.
Eritrea went crazy when Biniam Ghirmay started winning at the Tour de France and when he returns home after the Olympics it has been declared a national holiday.
Even Lance Armstrong, Tour de France winner five dope aided times in a row is an Eritrea fan. Personally, anything that will help bring attention to what I have described for over a decade now as “The Cuba of Africa”, Eritrea, and the role model it stands for all of Africa the better. No IMF/WorldBank predatory loans, no “western democracy” corrupting the government, no bowing down to US/EU hegemony, and of course being punished for it ruthlessly, a victory by Eritrea over white supremacy is a victory for the world, and this could be just the start of Eritrean domination in cycling internationally.
Thomas C. Mountain is an educator and historian who at one time was the most widely distributed independent journalist in Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea from 2006-2021. See thomascmountain on Facebook page, follow him on Twitter at thomascmountain or best contact him at thomascmountain at g mail dot com
