The latest edition of Cycling Weekly puts their readers in a saddle and takes them for a propaganda dtriven antisemitic spin.
The story opens with several interesting ‘facts’:
-Alaa al-Dali was on the brink of competing for ‘Palestine’ in the Asian games
-He was the national cycling champion
-He had just won gold at the 2018 National Championships
-and that his travel permit to compete in the Paralympics was rejected by those awful Israelis
Did Sayarer or Cycling Weekly check any of this? I had my suspicions so I went for an online stroll.
As far as I can tell the entire story is utter bunkum. Alaa al-Dali was a cyclist but was not the best in Gaza. His name does not appear anywhere in English *before* the shooting incident – which would be odd for a cycling champion. His Facebook profile appears to have been created only after the incident too – so maybe something needed to be hidden. When I searched for ‘Alaa Al Dali’ in Arabic, I ran into similar difficulties.
There is no sign of any 2018 Palestinian National Championship in Gaza. There is not a single image of him winning gold anywhere. All the photos circulating of him with a prize are from when he came third at a local UN-Japanese sponsored event – the ‘Tokyo Championship’ in mid-2017. At another event in April 2017, he did not make the podium. That April competition was sponsored by the radical Islamist terror group ‘Islamic Jihad’. Not one of the cyclists/coaches/journalists tagged into images of these events posted anything about a 2018 national competition in Gaza (examples 1,2,3,4,)
The PMSMF (the Palestinian Federation responsible for cycling competition), does not appear to have mentioned him when he was shot. They do mention an event in March 2018 – in Ramallah – Alaa al Dali does not seem to have competed.
And most awkwardly – the Palestinian national cycling team – if there was one – did not go to the Asian Games. In fact, they were not even accepted to the international cycling body UCI – which is the gateway to international competition – until November 2020.
Did the author not bother to check anything?
As for the Paralympics? The last one to take place was in 2016 and because of the Coronavirus pandemic, the next is not happening until Autumn 2021 at the earliest. Which Paralympics did the Israelis stop him from attending?
My guess? The story is total poppycock. Pallywood took a cyclist who suffered a tragedy and appropriated his disability to turn him into a former Palestinian champion for propaganda use.
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RACE STARTLIST HERE
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