Three of red jersey Ben O'Connor's Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale team mates received a yellow card after Wednesday's stage 11 of Vuelta a Espana. Why? It's not rare to see GC teams 'blocking' the road to prevent more riders from joining breakaways. But when one of Ben O'Connor's teammates caused Richard Carapaz to crash, the jury had seen enough and distributed not one, but three yellow warnings.
UPDATE: Ben O'Connor deleted his X account along with all posts shortly afterwards...
O'Connor shared his upset over this decision in an X post. "Dear UCI, What kind of dangerous move do you think my teammates Bouchard, Lafay, and Armirail that merited a yellow card? The road was blocked by us, like in every race after the breakaway leaves. We never tried to cause a crash, and never pushed someone off the road."
The Australian refuses for his team to bear any responsibility for Carapaz's subsequent crash, who accordingly attempted to pass the French team's blockade through gravel by the side of the road. Yet there is enough footage evidence that shows O'Connor's teammate deviate to close the left side of the road and force the Ecuadorian rider out of bounds.
And as one popular cycling Twitter account La Flamme Rouge points out, even the act of "obstruction by a rider or vehicle in order to prevent or delay the movement of another rider or vehicle" is fobidden by UCI rules, with fine up to 500 CHF, classification penalisations and newly the yellow cards on top.
Finally, O'Connor is angered by the jury's inconsistent decision making. "The yellow card is supposed to be implemented for dangerous riding. For example, if we are lined up at the front of the peloton, and a rider rides in the gravel off the road to get past, is this not causing danger?"
However, objectively speaking, there's not really much to say to add to his defense. If O'Connor rewatches the footage in a couple days, he'll likely come to an agreement with the decision that his team's actions indeed checked out all the boxes to rightfully receive a warning.
A small reminder: obstructing another rider to prevent their movement is a violation of UCI rules. While teams may want to control a breakaway, road blocking is against the rules, even if often tolerated. It also gives a poor impression to the public. #LaVuelta24
