| You don’t think of cyclists being the target for terrorist activity, but that’s perhaps because you don’t live in Columbia. Luis Alberto Herrera, a now retired top Columbian cyclist was kidnapped on Saturday, but happily, released on Sunday. This made him the second top Colombian cyclist to be kidnapped in two months. Herrera was a former winner of the Tour of Spain and also competed in the Tour de France and the Giro. Herrera told press that his abductors had freed him after seeing news reports of a massive military search operation for him. A ransom payment was mentioned, and no one claimed responsibility. However, Herrera’s parents farm, where kidnappers grabbed him Saturday, is in a mountainous area known as a stronghold for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a left-wing rebel group. Colombia has the dubious longtime distinction of holding the world’s highest kidnapping rate. With a population of about 40 million, the country had nearly 3,000 abductions in 1999. |
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