Olympic cycling champion faces army censure after mooning Trump’s White House

Olympic mountain bike champion Nino Shurter could reportedly be censured by his superior officers in the Swiss army after baring his behind in front of the White House in Washington, DC for a photo posted on social media.

The Instagram picture of the 33-year-old, winner of a gold medal at Rio 2016 having previously taken silver in London four years earlier and bronze at Beijing in 2008, mooning alongside three team-mates in front of the official residence of the President of the United States, was accompanied by the caption “White bum for the White House.”

Tages-Anzeiger says that Schurter has since deleted the Instagram post of the photo, taken in December last year while he was travelling to compete in the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in West Virginia, and in which President Donald Trump was tagged – although the newspaper itself has tweeted a copy of the picture.

Drohen Nino Schurter jetzt disziplinarische Massnahmen? (Abo+) https://t.co/HTEkmbQ0fv

— Tages-Anzeiger (@tagesanzeiger) September 19, 2019

Al four riders are members of the Swiss army, which funds their training, and SwissInfo.ch reports army spokesman Daniel Riest as saying: “Mr Schurter’s commanding officer will deal with the matter in a proportionate but disciplinary way.

“The cyclist may face a reprimand but what the punishment would be is up to the commanding officer and won’t be made public.”

He added that Schurter had apologised to his commanding officer and that previously he had an unblemished record.

Schurter, who is an 11-time world champion and has won the season-long World Cup competition on six occasions, said: “The photo was a spontaneous one. America is a magnificent country and I love traveling there.”