(Reuters) – The Trek–Segafredo cycling team have “parted ways” with Italian Antonio Tiberi a couple of months after suspending the former junior world champion for killing his neighbour’s cat by shooting it with an air rifle.
In February the team suspended Tiberi, a junior time trial world champion in 2019, for 20 days over the incident and on Friday they cut ties with the 21-year-old altogether.
“Trek-Segafredo and Antonio Tiberi have mutually agreed to part ways, effective immediately, after the rider’s actions during his suspension did not meet our criteria for a return to competition,” the team said in a statement.
The cat had belonged Federico Pedini Amati, a minister in the San Marino government and a former Captain Regent, or head of state, of the microstate enclaved in northern Italy.
Tiberi apologised for the incident in an Instagram post in March, saying he deeply regretted his “tremendously stupid and irresponsible” actions and promising to make donations from his winnings to organisations that look after stray cats.
($1 = 0.9074 euros)
(Reporting by Aadi Nair in Bengaluru, editing by Nick Mulvenney and Lincoln Feast.)
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