"Please take a video," the Team Dimension Data (NTT Pro Cycling for 2020) pro rider pleads at the start of the clip captured by fellow cyclist (shared on social media by user ) as he is apprehended aggressively by park rangers.
What appears to be the snapping of bone then also sounds before the video captures the somewhat overzealous hauling away of the promising 24-year-old South African athlete as he shouts "my arm is broken, my arm is broken."
Nicolas Dlamini was training in Cape Town when he was "pulled off his bicycle at high speed" by officials demanding he brandish a permit he did not posess, in the Silvermine section of Table Mountain National Park, NTT Pro Cycling .
NTT Pro Cycling also confirms he was later taken to hospital in Cape Town where x-rays confirmed a fracture of Dlamini's left humerus, broken when the same officials tried to load him into their vehicle. The team earlier and disciplinary procedures of the rangers involved.
"I was both devastated and appalled to see the video of Nicholas on social media," NTT Pro Cycling team principal Douglas Ryder said.
"To watch a young man who I know so well in such unnecessary distress made me feel sick, to be honest. The way in which he was treated is simply not acceptable."
Table Mountain National Park earlier denied any wrongdoing stating the situation "spiralled, causing the suspect to injure himself during the ordeal."
But the South African Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries soon stepped in:
The 2018 Tour Down Under KOM champion completed his first grand tour at the Vuelta and was setting his sights on representing South Africa at the Tokyo Olympics.
