Accidents happen in cycling. We all know that. It’s a rough sport. But this was not an accident:
"This was not an accident" - EF Education-EasyPost call for action to be taken against AG2R rider for causing Richard Carapaz crash
CyclingThursday, 29 August 2024 at 12:59
It was a relatively calm day at the Vuelta a España when it came to crashes, but that certainly didn't apply to Richard Carapaz. The EF Education-EasyPost rider went down early in the day due to a movement from the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale riders and the team management was quite irritated with the situation.
"Accidents happen in cycling. We all know that. It's a rough sport. But this was not an accident," team manager Jonathan Vaughters said in a message shared on X, alongside a video of the crash as seen from the helicopter camera. It looked apparent that the fall was because of the movement of the French team's riders, who were blocking the road so as to control the breakaway - something which earned several of them hefty fines and even yellow cards.
Team DS Juan Manuel Garate told Cyclingnews: “We just want the UCI to apply their rules. There are regulations in place, and they have to be applied.” Carapaz was not injured from the fall, but it is always a negative situation for the American team who is trying to support the Ecuadorian into GC success at La Vuelta.
Effectively, the French team was fined several thousands Swiss francs at the end of the day due to the road blocking - something that happens frequently in Grand Tours, but seemingly the race organizers wanted to make an example from this stage. Inclusively; Geoffrey Bouchard, Bruno Armirail and Victor Lafay were all given a yellow card, alongside team DS Cyril Dessel. Heavy fines were handed out. The French team came off the day with emptier pockets but also a smaller lead over Primoz Roglic in the overall classification.
The race leader himself O'Connor criticized the decision in a post shared on X but in an interesting turn of events, just about one hour later he deleted his account - most likely due to the backlash, since blocking the road was never an accepted situation in pro cycling.
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