Soren Waerenskjold refuses to race AlUla Tour 'because of human rights': "Gay rights, women's rights... there are many issues"
Cycling
The 2025 road cycling season is up and running and this week, a lot of the peloton are in Saudi Arabia for the AlUla Tour. Among the teams competing are Uno-X Mobility, but one man absent from the Scandinavian team's lineup is Soren Waerenskjold, who refuses to make the trip to Saudi Arabia for 'moral and ethical' reasons.
Waerenskjold has competed in Saudi Arabia before, winning a stage of the race in both 2023 and 2024. This year though, the 24-year-old has taken the step to rule himself out of selection for Uno-X Mobility. "I said I didn't want to go back, and the team respected that," he explains in conversation with TV2, from a team camp in Mallorca. "If the team had said I had to leave, I wouldn't have had any say in it. They're the bosses. But for my own part, I'll try to stay on the "right" side, so to speak."
Read also
The crux of the reasoning behind Waerenskjold's attempt to distance himself from the AlUla Tour are, as mentioned, 'moral and ethical' reasons. "It's because of human rights," he explains. "There is evidence of people being captured and killed because of their political views. Gay rights, women's rights... there are many issues."
"If you have the opportunity, I think it's positive to take a little distance. But then you have ASO, which is a very large organizer, which has a lot of business over there, so it quickly becomes a bit complicated," Waerenskjold continues, although he is also self-aware enough to admit that he himself taking a stand is unlikely to make much difference to the situation. "I'm just a simple cyclist who can make a simple choice. Systematic changes are probably difficult to achieve. And I don't really think that my distancing myself from it has any effect."
🇸🇦 #AlUlaTour - Stage 2️⃣
— طواف العلا | ALULATOUR (@thealulatour) January 29, 2025
🏁 145 km - 2’20’' ⏱
Behind the breakaway, Team Jayco AlUla sets the pace of the peloton.#طواف_العلا 🇸🇦
المرحلة 2️⃣
145 كيلو متر -’'202’ ⏱🏁#طواف_العلا #الرحلة_تستمر pic.twitter.com/mUwRvV8Ss0
I like this guy, few have the same courage or conscience these says, football and other sports have completely sold out, cycling is halfway there already. Ironically, most of the people who go along with this transformation in their passion for the sport are then the loudest about - how to say it diplomatically, fighting for cultural segregation.
Too much money in cycling (and sports in general) from repressive human rights abusing-petro-dictatorships. It's a small stand, but it's nice to see one cyclist making it at least.
"I'm just a simple cyclist who can make a simple choice. Systematic changes are probably difficult to achieve. And I don't really think that my distancing myself from it has any effect." We can never know when a word or a gesture can change someones mind or viewpoint. Respect Soren for speaking your mind and sticking to your principals.
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- The problem with forcing ideas in the hope to create buzz or desperation to be the first with « news » and get copied is that if and when things do get announced, nobody can enjoy anything anymore out of built-up expectations and if it doesn’t get announced, either nobody cares or people get disappointed or even angry from having their hopes (expectations) crushed. Enjoy what tou still can.Mistermaumau02-04-2025
- Let him join Pidcock, that seems to solve rider and team problems ;-) Only problem is the stress over long judicial proceedings you lay end up losing which can ALSO get to your state of mind.Mistermaumau02-04-2025
- This from the man that almost destroyed the “essence” of cycling.Djs01-04-2025
- Regarding one point in the article: Vingegaard and Pogacar raced against each other at Monuments in the past - Il Lombardia and Liege, from 2020 to 2022. Pogacar's results are 3, 1, 1, and 1, while Vingegaard's are 84, 28, 14, and 16, respectively in the same races. But Vingegaard hasn't raced a Monument since 2022.RidesHills01-04-2025
- What, no Jay, Jonas. Remco, Primoz, etc.? Hope Cras doesn’t need an H this year.Mistermaumau01-04-2025
- Interesting, now’s the chance for all those who were grumpy about or against paying for subscriptions. But, if the pay is half decent one of girls from the women’s peloton might beat you to it ;-)Mistermaumau01-04-2025
- In those days the Tour was like Paris-Roubaix 3 weeks running :-)tMistermaumau01-04-2025
- The Dutch are a popular sporting target for foreign criticismMistermaumau01-04-2025
- Completely agree, and that’s in cases where the team even reaches the rider before he/she decides to get up by themself and start chasing. No protocol or rule will solve this perfectly, this is not a sport with a referee putting everything on hold whilst checks are made.Mistermaumau01-04-2025
- Is it just me or are the opinions of retired pros from certain parts of Northern Europe becoming increasingly Pythonesque? “In our day we had sandpaper chamois and barbed wire for bar tape when we rode Paris Roubaix, it used to be a proper race”……..I’m not even that big a Pogacar fan and I hope he does it just to shut them up.Jezla01-04-2025