"It's the cyclists' fault" - Head of police at Volta ao Algarve denies responsibility over roundabout incident
Cycling
After the chaos at the arrival of the first stage of the Volta ao Algarve, with cyclists pointing the finger at the race organization and showing their dissatisfaction with what happened, the race organization published a statement in which it decided to cancel the opening stage of the Algarve.
Some time after things calmed down, VTM journalist Stijn Vlaeminck spoke to the Commissioner of the Public Security Police, Luis Miranda, who reiterated that the organization had not failed and that the cyclists were solely to blame for what happened.
"The cyclists were coming down this street, the commissars with the red and yellow flags were here and they signalled for the cyclists to go left, to enter on the left side of the traffic circle," explains the police Commissioner. "The cyclists didn't look at the commissaire (of the race ed.), they were looking at the ground and passed him and went to the right"
The PSP Commissioner says that the cyclists didn't obey the instructions that the race commissaires were giving the peloton to go around the traffic circle on the left, and explains, "The traffic circle had protective bays and yellow indications for the cyclists to go left."
You can see on the television images that the Lotto man at the front of the peloton ignores the instructions given by the race commissaire, who is seen running to get out of the middle of the road so as not to be run over by the cyclists, and as he goes around the traffic circle the he even takes one of his hands off the handlebars and looks back in displeasure.
When PSP Commissioner Luis Miranda was asked if the peloton was to blame and not the organization of the race, he answered, "I think so (the peloton is to blame)," he concluded.
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- i wouldn't count Pogi out. Low probability of a win, but not impossiblemobk01-04-2025
- Right now it doesn't seem that his legs are there or that his head is in the racevappaxbipmv01-04-2025
- would have been nice to hear exactly WHY he thinks pog has zero chance in some greater detail. i mean, tend to agree that his chances aren’t GREAT, but some explanation from the expert with an opinion would be nice. MINE is that, in spite of the recon he did where tadej concluded that the course “wasn’t that hard” i think that doing the full route at full gas is really going to beat up pogacar’s 145lb body, to a degree that he maybe isn’t expecting. but hey, we’ll see in a couple weeks. like everyone else, i do think it’s supercool that he’s going.OCexile01-04-2025
- Go back to that era and look at the lousy mechanicals he's had at Paris-Roubaix. Take those away, maybe he has another Monument, Van der Poel has one less, and suddenly all the rules change. Those mechanicals preceded his awful crashes - and you're right, that Tour was amazing. Ventoux, TT, and Champs-Elysees?! Something that Pogacar and Van der Poel can't do, just Wout. It still amazes me.RidesHills01-04-2025
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- Ease up on a brother!bobo01-04-2025
- Primoz finds ways to win. Too bad he'll never take Tour de France.awp01-04-2025
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- Hard to imagine that his confidence - that imperious flow state that great athletes operate in - hasn't been affected. But that is a different dynamic than the one you described. He has not become hesitant because he is fixated on his rival. He has suffered multiple traumatic injuries, and I have no doubt he is still 1% off both mentally and physically as a result. Football (both kinds) and basketball players who blow out knees go through a predictable cycle in which they are reluctant to do max efforts even after their doctors have cleared them. I myself went though a small version of that after a back injury. It's just hard once you no longer know where the line is. We saw in his TT a couple weeks ago that he still has power, and for all the hand wringing he is still finishing in the top 10-20 of big races. But as we have seen with others, getting *all* the way back is not assured. I'm not ready to say he is done, but few riders who have been hurt as often and as badly as him remain at the top.MidnightRider01-04-2025