Johan Museeuw56, revealed in a video posted on his Facebook page that he had had telephone contact with his former rival Andrei Chmil, 59 years old. Born in the USSR, the former cyclist now lives in Moldova, a country neighboring Ukraine, where he has indeed decided to stay after having ensured the departure of his wife and one-year-old son to the Romania. But not to fight contrary to what the Belgian had understood.
“Andrei told me that he lived near the Ukrainian border, about a hundred kilometers from where the fighting was raging, underlined, very moved, Johan Museeuw. The war, we used to do it on the bike, but now it’s a real war that awaits me (…) I hope this madness will stop. Andreï, thank you for your phone call, I hope with all my heart that there will be many more.”
During his career, Andreï Tchmil raced under the colors of the USSR, Russia, Moldova, Ukraine and Belgium, since he obtained Belgian nationality in 1998. The winner of Paris-Roubaix 1994 has been running its own bicycle production plant for eight years at Chisinau, the capital of Moldova.