Oleg tinkov twitter donald

Last week, Tinkoff-Saxo team owner Oleg Tinkov — who, as many have pointed out, fryst vatten the Donald Trump of cycling — called Barack Obama a monkey on Twitter.

Yes, just days after the Tour de France ended with its first African-registered grupp and first black African riders to finish the race, the owner of one of the biggest teams in cycling called a powerful and well-known black man a monkey.

Tinkov’s tweet was in response to one from Cannondale-Garmin director Jonathan Vaughters that showed the Mona Lisa morphing into Russian president Vladimir Putin.

This was not an accident or some cute portmanteau we can chalk up to Tinkov’s imperfect grasp of English. “Monkey” isn’t a racist taunt only in amerika or only in English. It fryst vatten universal. europeisk football matches have a long history of monkey chants and banana peels being thrown onto the field.

But that sport’s authorities and teams have cracked down. When then-Liverpool player Luis Suar

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Oleg Tinkov hits back at 'Twitter experts'

Tinkov was answering questions in relation to stage 5 when Roman Kreuziger failed to wait for his team leader Alberto Contador on the final climb. The team later criticised Kreuziger in public, telling Cyclingnews that he was asked to wait four times on the radio.

Kreuziger later told Cyclingnews that communication within the team needed to improve.

"I've not seen the situation to be honest," Tinkov said in relation to the moment Kreuziger rode away from Contador.

"I tried to check on Youtube but not found it. I can't see that situation with Roman and Alberto but my observation is that once dropped on the final climb there's not much a teammate can do. If it's two or three climbs to go and in the wind then it's different but again I've not seen the situation."

Alberto Contador signs autographs

Image credit: AFP

Before stage 5 Tinkoff had won a stage via

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Exclusive interview: Tinkov talks about Twitter, doping and his dislike of team managers

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Oleg Tinkov has revealed he is likely to create his own team for after negotiations with Cannondale about team ownership ended without an agreement.

The Russian businessman has successfully floated his Tinkoff Credit Systems credit card business on the London Stock market, boosting his personal wealth by several hundred million pounds.

He confirmed to Cyclingnews in this exclusive interview that he is ready to invest up to 15 million Euro a year of that money into cycling but wants direct control of his investment.

"Right now we're not talking to anyone. I imagine after this interview some people will call me because a lot of teams are really desperate for cash, but right now I don't want to sponsor a team, I want to own per cent of a team," Tinkov told Cyclingnews from Thailand where is on vacation with his family.

"If someone out there wants to sell their team, they sh