"These relegations are absolute jokes" - Tadej Pogacar BASHES Deutschland Tour's relegation of Danny van Poppel, but is he right?

The Deutschland Tour had a controversial finale today on stage 3, as Danny van Poppel, stage winner, was relegated over a dangerous sprint. The Dutch champion almost caused Matthew Brennan (and as a consequence race leader Soren Waerenskjold) to crash mid-sprint and the relegation was the logical decision. However this is not an opinion shared by all, and Tadej Pogacar himself has taken to social media to criticize this decision - perhaps an even more controversial opinion.

Pogacar, currently recovering and preparing for the final races of the season, has seen the finale of today's stage in Germany and was unhappy with the decision taken by the race commissaires. All over social media there were immediate appeals for a relegation to be applied to the Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe rider, and it didn't take long before it happened. Soren Waerenskjold was declared the stage winner.

Pogacar, in two Instagram stories, has commented on it: The clear winner of today's stage. This (correction: these, ed.) relegations are absolute jokes and not correct, job done poorly... like so many times this year. Congrats Danny van Poppal you won. Don't get me wrong. If they are relegating riders here, they can relegate 4 to 5 riders. Look all the picture. Peace out".

It comes as an interesting statement from the World Champion, in a situation where almost unanimously everyone agreed that a relegation was to be applied, and even van Poppel himself stayed for long minutes with his helmet and sunglasses on, not preparing for the podium ceremonies, because it had been apparent that this would happen. Earlier in the season van Poppel has already collected two yellow cards, both in occasions where he had been sprinting for himself or leading out teammates, and is one of the riders who is more often caught up in such situations.