"Disqualification is not the standard sanction" - UCI justify lack of punishment for Mathieu van der Poel's 'sidewalk incident' at World Championships
CyclingSunday, 06 October 2024 at 10:54
Mathieu van der Poel rode in the sidewalk momentarily at the World Championships and came quite close to spectators who were watching the events unfold. Captured on the race broadcast, it led to some complaints - mostly regarding the UCI's inconsistency of applying it's own rules. The Dutchman did not receive any consequences as a result, despite complaints, and the UCI explains why this was the case.
The incident happened already deep into the race, with the riders in the middle of the fight for victory. For just a few seconds van der Poel jumped onto the sidewalk to overtake some riders, which was duly noted by fans on social media specially. But no consequences ensured, including a fine. The Latvian federation later launched a public complain which correctly assessed the situation as some sort of rule breaking (even if it was largely motivated by Latvia's Toms Skujins fininshing one position behind van der Poel and outside the medals, in fourth place).
In the open letter there was criticism of the dismissal from the UCI commissaires over the incident. However with a lot of traction having been gained, there was the need to respond to this situation. Now the sport's governing body has explained why there were no consequences for the former World Champion:
"The UCI recognizes the open letter from the Latvian Cycling Federation. The panel of UCI commissioners is responsible for sporting supervision of events. In the current situation, it was determined that sanctions were not necessary. With a rulebook like this, it should be underlined that disqualification is not the standard sanction - the deduction of points and a fine - and that it happens only "in cases of significant advantage, danger, repeated violations or aggravating circumstances. This situation did not fall under the circumstances above".
Hence van der Poel managed to retain his bronze medal; although it is rather unclear why there was no fine, penalization of UCI points or the infamous 'yellow card' that was used quite a lot at La Vuelta.
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remember that the cycling commissars are NOT professional, paid experts on cycling. they’re volunteers. there’s no strict standard of performance that THEY are held to, that their livelihood depends on like there would be for a major league baseball umpire or a premier league football referee. without that, who knows what plays into their decisions. “van ver poel is a LEGENDARY bike handler, so i guess if HE does it it’s NOT dangerous.” or “i have to go to antwerp on tuesday and i don’t want to come home with no arms or legs.” Etc…
Yes but SOCK LENGTH!!
Crazy that they've not even penalised him for that. It's wasn't even an empty pavement.
So it's fine for anyone else to do that now ?
Safety clearly isn't a big thing for the UCI. Of spectators or riders.
UCI doing UCI things.
i love van der poel, but he clearly should have been fined and or lost points. the naked truth is that the UCI is a business, and van der poel is one of THE faces of that business: tadej, mathieu, remco, and to some lesser degree vingo. for the UCI, they’re SPECIAL. did they “earn” that “special” status, yeah, i guess. but it’s always disheartening to see the cynical inequities that are driven by corporate bottom lines, even if they favor your heroes.
I kind of agree but when you see how peop’e sometimes react when federations (FIA vs Hamilton are classic examples) do try to be strict, you also understand that sometimes they just close a blind eye.
Well it was when Luke Rowe rode on the pavement some years ago.