Leading Belgian cyclist Remco Evenepoel expressed his support for victims of Friday's earthquake by unfurling a giant Moroccan flag with his teammates shortly before stage 15 of the Tour of Spain got underway on Sunday afternoon.
"First of all, my wife is Moroccan, we have a lot of family near the region where horrible things happened," Evenepoel told event organisers prior to the start of the 158.3-kilometre section from Pamplona to Lekunberri in Northern Spain.
"This is a difficult time for her, for her family and for me. So this is a way of supporting the people and the country of Morocco after what has happened. It means a lot to me, it means a lot to her. It's never nice when something like this happens," he added.
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Evenepoel is the winner of last year's Tour of Spain and also came first in stage 14 of this year's competition.
A devastating magnitude 7 earthquake struck Morocco just after 23:00 local time on Friday night. A provisional toll by the Moroccan Interior Ministry puts the number of dead at at least 2,012 and the number of injured at 2,059, 1,404 of whom are in critical condition.
