Controversy in China! Astana Qazaqstan furious after Alexey Lutsenko is kicked out of Tour of Hainan 2024: "Our team completely disagrees with this decision"

Whilst most of the headlines in the cycling world currently are from Spain and the final Grand Tour of 2024, another stage race is taking place is China currently, the Tour of Hainan.

Sadly for Alexey Lutsenko however, the race has ended prematurely after the Kazakh leader of the Astana Qazaqstan Team was disqualified following stage 3 due to what the race jury perceived to be a deviation from his sprinting line, causing a crash at the intermediate sprint.

“The decision by the commissaires came as a surprise to us. Yes, there was an unfortunate racing incident during the intermediate sprint when Alexey collided with a rider from another team, resulting in a crash. The riders’ wheels got tangled; this happens: someone looks one way during the sprint, someone else looks another… such moments are common in racing. It was an accident," a furious Astana Qazaqstan Team boss Alexandr Vinokurov says in an official press release on the matter via the team's official website.

"Yes, the commissaires could have penalized the rider in some way, but to remove him from the race? Our team completely disagrees with this decision," the former Olympic gold medallist concludes. "Alexey did nothing in that moment to warrant disqualification. We regret that the crash happened, it’s very unfortunate, but Alexey Lutsenko is not to blame. And this is our position on the matter.”