"We regret the incident and we take responsibility" - Visma apologize for Zingle's extreme sticky bottle incident; Richard Plugge fined and given yellow card

The E3 Saxo Classic was marked by Mathieu van der Poel's solo victory and one spot behind him on the podium was Team Visma | Lease a Bike's Per Strand Hagenes who rode a strong race. However not every Visma rider was in the spotlight for the right reasons, as Axel Zingle was seen being towed by a team car and was duly disqualified. Behind the wheel was none other than team CEO Richard Plugge, and the incident had the team come out and apologize.

'Sticky bottles', the act of a rider and a sports director in the team car grabbing onto the bidon and accelerating sharply and shortly, are not uncommon in pro cycling. However there is a general unwritten rule that understands that this can only be used for brief moments, and following an incident from a rider, such as a crash or mechanical.

However at times, these are taken to the extreme. Vincenzo Nibali infamously did so at the 2015 Vuelta a España whilst being one of the leading favourites and was disqualified from the race as a result. This Friday at the E3 Saxo Classic, it was Visma's Axel Zingle's turn, after a spectator caught the 'sticky bottle' on a video which then quickly spread like wildfire throughout social media.

Before the race was even finished, the Frenchman had been disqualified, even though at the time, the video showed he was not being followed by other riders or commissaire cars who would report it, making the video the leading evidence of the wrongdoing.

Team DS Marteen Wynants explained to Sporza what happened in his point of view from a different team car: “We received a message with about 10 kilometers to go that Zingle had been taken out of the race. At first we did not know what had happened, but later we heard there were images of him holding onto the car.”

There was nothing the team could stand on to defend Zingle and, as it turned out, Richard Plugge's actions. The team CEO was the man on the car that was towing Zingle along, and the footage was too damning for there to be a plausible justification.

Wynants apologized in behalf of the team for what was a controversial moment. “We regret the incident. This does not contribute to the image of cycling. It happened in the background after a puncture and it did not influence the result, but it should not have happened.”

“Once again, we regret the incident and we take responsibility. The fact that something happens more often in cycling does not give us the right to do it as well," he concluded.