Audax Club Parisien's response to an open letter from Ukrainian randonneurs

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Dear friends!

On February 27, 2022, we sent an open letter to the Audax Club Parisien demanding condemnation of the war of the Russian Federation with the support of the Republic of Belarus against Ukraine and imposing sanctions on clubs under the jurisdiction of aggressor states. Copies of this open letter were also sent to all ACP representatives in different states.

Within 10 days, we received different positions on the sanction from different ACP representatives. We have received strong support from Randonneurs Norge, Audax Randonneurs Allemange, Lithuania Randonneurs and Georgia Randonneurs. And there were those who did not express direct support for aggression against Ukraine, but their position showed indifference to the fact that people are dying in our country. Let’s leave it to their conscience.

But we expected response with the official position of the ACP from the club’s president Luc Coppin. Unfortunately, the president did not answer us. We received a response from Jean-Gualbert Faburel, who is responsible for the BRP in the ACP. Since it has been possible to word a position for a long time, we consider Jean-Gualbert’s response to be the official position of the ACP.

Here is the text of this answer:

Dear all,

We are all very very sad to see a war in Ukrainia and to know that some of our friends are living a very dangerous time for themselves, their families and friends. Right now, our friends randonneurs are safe and we wish them to stay safe.

As you all know, Audax Club Parisien’s only objective is to promote long distance cycling. As CIO is promoting sport all over the world, despite conflicts and diplomatic issues, we would like to focus only on sport, friendness, safety, wellness. We all know very good friends who are russians and I would like to give a big hugh to Valery Komotchkov, our representative for Russia, as to Oleg and Alexandre, our representatives for Ukrainia. We all know that they, as many russians and ukrainians, would like only to live in peace and to ride safely all over the world.

Please, we must stay away from these conflict and just pray for our brothers who are only suffering, where ever they are living. We are sharing a same passion!

Thank you to keep calm.

Best regards, Jean-Gualbert

Our club considers such a position unacceptable. Because not accusing aggression against Ukraine is equivalent to supporting this aggression.

Therefore, we decide to terminate our relationship with Audax Club Parisien. What exactly this means for randonneurs and all of us - we will report separately.

Regards, Moguls Audax team