"A lot of people think Lenny Martinez should be thrown out of this race" - Should Martinez count himself lucky after stickiest of Tour de France sticky bottles?

With stage 18 being the Queen Stage of the 2025 Tour de France, there were understandably many talking points afterwards. Amongst discussion of Ben O’Connor's victory and Jonas Vingegaard coming up short against Tadej Pogacar again though, it was Lenny Martinez who caused a sensation online.

Bahrain - Victorious rider Martinez started Stage 18 as the joint leader of the King of the Mountains classification and successfully made it into the day’s early breakaway on the Col du Glandon. However, the young Frenchman was frequently seen struggling at the rear of the group and was eventually dropped.

Then, with 114 kilometres remaining and the TV cameras watching, he was caught resorting to a 'sticky bottle' tactic—not just once, but on three separate occasions. In one instance, he even took a gel from the team car only to toss it straight back. Thanks largely to this borderline move, Martinez managed to rejoin the breakaway and ultimately claimed maximum KOM points atop the hors catégorie climb.

In the end, the jury did take action against Martinez, being given a fine and among other things an 8 point deduction in the KoM classification. Was he lucky to get off so lightly however? Danish ex-pro Christian Moberg believes Martinez could, and maybe should, have been thrown off the race.

"It's not an appropriate punishment at all. When the new rule came in that they wanted to enforce that you can't hang on to the car and get help from your people, there were lots of riders who were sent home. Vincenzo Nibali was sent home for that," Moberg says on TV2. "I think it was over the line. I am a sports director myself, and I have done it many times, but this is perhaps a bit on the bad side."

The thing that stands out most for Moberg, is the sheer brazenness with how Bahrain and Martinez acted. "I think it's very clear that Lenny Martinez was in a bit of trouble and wanted to go down and get some gels first – and then should have swapped one for the other. And it got a little extra on the accelerator, and he got a slingshot," he details. "I quickly went on social media after I saw this after the stage, and there I found out that there were a lot of people who thought Lenny Martinez should be thrown out of this race."