37th Vuelta a San Juan Internacional (2.1)

[Cance > TheRest]

Re:

Gaviria obviously the fastest, but not that much considering Sagan was hesitating.
Congrats.

The fastest as in he won the stage. Not the fastest in terms of top speed.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Re: Re:

Looks like there were some gaps. Several names dropped out of the top-10.

It could be due to that strange white surface in the last turn. The bunch was clearly not sure how safe it was and some slowed down considerably. I would not be surprised if the jury decide to remove the gaps (of course, depending on how many relevant names are affected).

What happened to Evenepoel?

The Cyclingnews results show him missing from the top ten, but Procyclingstats still has him in fourth on GC. I am not sure which is correct.

HLN.be reports that Evenepoel was pulling the peloton into the final K and that he stays in the Best Youth jersey... so i assume he's still there.

EDIT: did Quickstep not show up at the podium? I read a remark in the comments that they could be disqualified for not showing up?

 

[armchairclimber]

He was on the front until just before the 1km banner, then dropped back. Don't know how far.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Re:

He was on the front until just before the 1km banner, then dropped back. Don't know how far.

Ok, but if he does in fact stay in the green (i think) jersey, then he needs to be ahead of Gino Mäder, and he (Mäder) does show up in general classifications... so either HLN is correct, or something happened and he lost his jersey.

EDIT: both Procycling and Firstcycling both updated the standings and the full list of stage 4. Evenepoel finished 87th, still within the first group of the peloton. No time loss.

 

[Bye Bye Bicycle]

DQT riders boycotted the podium ceremony today. That’s very poor.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

DQT riders boycotted the podium ceremony today. That’s very poor.

That is ridiculous.
Not a good look for the team

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

He was on the front until just before the 1km banner, then dropped back. Don't know how far.

Ok, but if he does in fact stay in the green (i think) jersey, then he needs to be ahead of Gino Mäder, and he (Mäder) does show up in general classifications... so either HLN is correct, or something happened and he lost his jersey.

EDIT: both Procycling and Firstcycling both updated the standings and the full list of stage 4. Evenepoel finished 87th, still within the first group of the peloton. No time loss.

Yeah, looks like the jury removed any time gaps that appeared in the final

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Re: Re:

DQT riders boycotted the podium ceremony today. That’s very poor.

That is ridiculous.
Not a good look for the team

I agree DQS doesn't look very good, and handled this poorly (i gave my opinion in the DQS topic as well) but i also don't think it should be up to a race organizer, to kick a rider out, for something that happened outside the race, and has already been closed by the authorities. This is not the precedent you want to set. Even though you may think Keisse's actual punishment (the laughable 3000 pesos) may not fit the crime, if the case is closed, it's not up to a race organizer to pass judgement over something that happened outside the race. So if a race organizer thinks whatever a rider has done in the past or outside of the event/race, they can take riders out of the race. Surely you can see how this can be a problem.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Re: Re:

EDIT: did Quickstep not show up at the podium? I read a remark in the comments that they could be disqualified for not showing up?

Someone else mentioned them losing all UCI points earned in the race up until now (I suppose that only applies to Alaphilippe, Evenepoel and Hodeg), if the new UCI rule was applied, which seems more appropriate than disqualifying them altogether.

 

[tobydawq]

Apparently, they were all too sick to go to the podium.

Lucky they have a rest day tomorrow.

...

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

DQT riders boycotted the podium ceremony today. That’s very poor.

That is ridiculous.
Not a good look for the team

I agree DQS doesn't look very good, and handled this poorly (i gave my opinion in the DQS topic as well) but i also don't think it should be up to a race organizer, to kick a rider out, for something that happened outside the race, and has already been closed by the authorities. This is not the precedent you want to set. Even though you may think Keisse's actual punishment (the laughable 3000 pesos) may not fit the crime, if the case is closed, it's not up to a race organizer to pass judgement over something that happened outside the race. So if a race organizer thinks whatever a rider has done in the past or outside of the event/race, they can take riders out of the race. Surely you can see how this can be a problem.

Wonder if there is a conduct clause that the race organizers are using to kick him out with?

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Re: Re:

DQT riders boycotted the podium ceremony today. That’s very poor.

That is ridiculous.
Not a good look for the team

I agree DQS doesn't look very good, and handled this poorly (i gave my opinion in the DQS topic as well) but i also don't think it should be up to a race organizer, to kick a rider out, for something that happened outside the race, and has already been closed by the authorities. This is not the precedent you want to set. Even though you may think Keisse's actual punishment (the laughable 3000 pesos) may not fit the crime, if the case is closed, it's not up to a race organizer to pass judgement over something that happened outside the race. So if a race organizer thinks whatever a rider has done in the past or outside of the event/race, they can take riders out of the race. Surely you can see how this can be a problem.

In the end, the only persons who know what happened are the squad and the women. And it's her word against theirs. And somehow hers was found more believable and led to a fine. I guess that's fair game. Although I feel like this is just 21st centruy Social Justice going mad and that because Keisse is a man he's seen as a sexist pig instead of a bloke who pulled off a stupid joke (Innocent till proven guilty didn't matter in this case I guess). In any case did the race not have any rights to DSQ him. They have no actual evidence of the touching and Keisse had been punished enough already. I imagine that the DQT feel the same way otherwise they wouldn't react like this. Was it a stupid action? Yes? Did it deserve a fine? In my eyes no, since it's word against word. Did he deserve to be disqualified? Most defenitely not! Does DQT have the right to protest this? Most defenitely!

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Re: Re:

DQT riders boycotted the podium ceremony today. That’s very poor.

That is ridiculous.
Not a good look for the team

I agree DQS doesn't look very good, and handled this poorly (i gave my opinion in the DQS topic as well) but i also don't think it should be up to a race organizer, to kick a rider out, for something that happened outside the race, and has already been closed by the authorities. This is not the precedent you want to set. Even though you may think Keisse's actual punishment (the laughable 3000 pesos) may not fit the crime, if the case is closed, it's not up to a race organizer to pass judgement over something that happened outside the race. So if a race organizer thinks whatever a rider has done in the past or outside of the event/race, they can take riders out of the race. Surely you can see how this can be a problem.

Wonder if there is a conduct clause that the race organizers are using to kick him out with?

Didn't the TDF try to kick/deny Froome and Boonen, on similar grounds? In both cases, they were denied. They had to accept both Boonen and Froome. Boonen due to having used coke at a nightclub about 10-15 years ago. So it's strange that Vuelta a San Juan can kick riders out on a similar principle.

 

[RedheadDane]

Well, we know he did it, there's picture-evidence, so...
Honestly, I just feel sorry for Alaphilippe here. He's trying to win a bike race, and now he might not get a chance to, because one of his - supposedly older and smarter - teammates decided to be an idiot.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Re:

Well, we know he did it, there's picture-evidence, so...
Honestly, I just feel sorry for Alaphilippe here. He's trying to win a bike race, and now he might not get a chance to, because one of his - supposedly older and smarter - teammates decided to be an idiot.

We know he did the stupid pose. We don't know wether or not he touched her. Anyways does someone remeber Peter Sagan? He actually did grope a women. And got away with it being the big name he is

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

Well, we know he did it, there's picture-evidence, so...
Honestly, I just feel sorry for Alaphilippe here. He's trying to win a bike race, and now he might not get a chance to, because one of his - supposedly older and smarter - teammates decided to be an idiot.

We know he did the stupid pose. We don't know wether or not he touched her. Anyways does someone remeber Peter Sagan? He actually did grope a women. And got away with it being the big name he is

I thought he should have been fined for that.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re: Re:

Well, we know he did it, there's picture-evidence, so...
Honestly, I just feel sorry for Alaphilippe here. He's trying to win a bike race, and now he might not get a chance to, because one of his - supposedly older and smarter - teammates decided to be an idiot.

We know he did the stupid pose. We don't know wether or not he touched her. Anyways does someone remeber Peter Sagan? He actually did grope a women. And got away with it being the big name he is

I also remember that people - quite rightly - got pretty pissed. Also, there is the difference in age; you'd think a 36-year-old would be a bit more mature than a 23-year-old...
Besides; even if he didn't touch her, it's still bad. The pose itself was bad.

 

[Sestriere]

Re: Re:

DQT riders boycotted the podium ceremony today. That’s very poor.

That is ridiculous.
Not a good look for the team

I agree DQS doesn't look very good, and handled this poorly (i gave my opinion in the DQS topic as well) but i also don't think it should be up to a race organizer, to kick a rider out, for something that happened outside the race, and has already been closed by the authorities. This is not the precedent you want to set. Even though you may think Keisse's actual punishment (the laughable 3000 pesos) may not fit the crime, if the case is closed, it's not up to a race organizer to pass judgement over something that happened outside the race. So if a race organizer thinks whatever a rider has done in the past or outside of the event/race, they can take riders out of the race. Surely you can see how this can be a problem.

In the end, the only persons who know what happened are the squad and the women. And it's her word against theirs. And somehow hers was found more believable and led to a fine. I guess that's fair game. Although I feel like this is just 21st centruy Social Justice going mad and that because Keisse is a man he's seen as a sexist pig instead of a bloke who pulled off a stupid joke (Innocent till proven guilty didn't matter in this case I guess). In any case did the race not have any rights to DSQ him. They have no actual evidence of the touching and Keisse had been punished enough already. I imagine that the DQT feel the same way otherwise they wouldn't react like this. Was it a stupid action? Yes? Did it deserve a fine? In my eyes no, since it's word against word. Did he deserve to be disqualified? Most defenitely not! Does DQT have the right to protest this? Most defenitely!

The organiser's reasoning to exclude Keisse was 'damaging the reputation of the race', which was done in the moment he made his stupid gesture, the photo was published and the woman filed a complaint to the police. His exclusion has nothing to do with the actual legal process. It was a move by the organisers to not lose backing from the locals, as it wouldn't help them if the impression spreaded, that the roads got closed for some foreiners riding their bikes to then behave like ***** towards locals.

 

[RedheadDane]

Good point.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Re: Re:

The organiser's reasoning to exclude Keisse was 'damaging the reputation of the race', which was done in the moment he made his stupid gesture, the photo was published and the woman filed a complaint to the police. His exclusion has nothing to do with the actual legal process. It was a move by the organisers to not lose backing from the locals, as it wouldn't help them if the impression spreaded, that the roads got closed for some foreiners riding their bikes to then behave like ***** towards locals.

And if you don't see the problem with that, then i don't know what to tell you. TDF tried to deny Boonen to enter because he had been caught using cocaine right before the TDF. They used the same reasoning. They were forced to let him enter. The day an organizer can kick out a rider for something that happened outside his race, you only need one chauvinistic ass on the board, to come up with a bogus reason to kick a rider out, in order to get another rider to benefit.

The UCI rule is 1.2.079
So what happens when a race organizer thinks its damaging to its reputation to allow former doping offenders? Or to allow a rider with a criminal past?

 

[Keram]

Re: Re:

Well, we know he did it, there's picture-evidence, so...
Honestly, I just feel sorry for Alaphilippe here. He's trying to win a bike race, and now he might not get a chance to, because one of his - supposedly older and smarter - teammates decided to be an idiot.

We know he did the stupid pose. We don't know wether or not he touched her. Anyways does someone remeber Peter Sagan? He actually did grope a women. And got away with it being the big name he is

If it happend nowadays it would be more damaging for him. After metoo things changed in such cases. Just saying not judging...

 

[Sestriere]

Re: Re:

The organiser's reasoning to exclude Keisse was 'damaging the reputation of the race', which was done in the moment he made his stupid gesture, the photo was published and the woman filed a complaint to the police. His exclusion has nothing to do with the actual legal process. It was a move by the organisers to not lose backing from the locals, as it wouldn't help them if the impression spreaded, that the roads got closed for some foreiners riding their bikes to then behave like ***** towards locals.

And if you don't see the problem with that, then i don't know what to tell you. TDF tried to deny Boonen to enter because he had been caught using cocaine right before the TDF. They used the same reasoning. They were forced to let him enter. The day an organizer can kick out a rider for something that happened outside his race, you only need one chauvinistic *** on the board, to come up with a bogus reason to kick a rider out, in order to get another rider to benefit.

While I see the problem you are outlining in your last sentence, this obviously wasn't the case here. Regarding the likely thought process that led to the organiser's decission which I explained in my post, and that I agree with, we should leave it with the bolded part.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Re: Re:

Well, we know he did it, there's picture-evidence, so...
Honestly, I just feel sorry for Alaphilippe here. He's trying to win a bike race, and now he might not get a chance to, because one of his - supposedly older and smarter - teammates decided to be an idiot.

We know he did the stupid pose. We don't know wether or not he touched her. Anyways does someone remeber Peter Sagan? He actually did grope a women. And got away with it being the big name he is

Sagan was forced to make apology after apology after apology. But yes, he was lucky that he was a very popular rider already and that it was well before MeToo. He would have been in real **** if it had happened in 2019 or 2018 instead.

 

[skidmark]

Re: Re:

Well, we know he did it, there's picture-evidence, so...
Honestly, I just feel sorry for Alaphilippe here. He's trying to win a bike race, and now he might not get a chance to, because one of his - supposedly older and smarter - teammates decided to be an idiot.

We know he did the stupid pose. We don't know wether or not he touched her. Anyways does someone remeber Peter Sagan? He actually did grope a women. And got away with it being the big name he is

I've thought about that incident too in the last few days, and it's made me wonder if the landscape has changed in almost 6 years. I think it has, quite significantly. I think the outcry and pressure would be similar if it was Sagan doing that today - I mean, in the last 6 years, tons of races have done away with the practice of having podium girls entirely, which is a sea change from the previous decades. Part of the change in thinking towards that was spurred by that incident, like 'while we're talking about him groping podium girls, uhhh, why are there podium girls'. So although it is dumb that, relatively speaking, Sagan skated by that one while Keisse is in the middle of a sh*tstorm, I do feel that if Sagan did exactly that today, he'd be in the middle of an even bigger sh*tstorm. Like, my feeling is that he didn't get away with it because he was a big name, it's because not as many people thought it was a big deal as they do now. Plus it was after a one-day race that was over, so it's not like Flanders Classics found itself in a tough spot with an ongoing race and the choice of whether to exclude him a la ASO with Rasmussen in 2007.

But yeah, the way this is playing out is pretty frustrating. There are two issues getting conflated - on the one hand, Keisse (and Sagan and whoever else) would do well to learn that the benefit that they might get from a laugh at what might be a meaningless joke for them is more than countered by the serious humiliation someone might feel at being on the other end of that joke. By his statements, that seems to be getting through (although not to Lefevre I guess). But the way that the team and organization have both handled it is rather clumsy - if the organization was going to take him out of the race, they should have done it before the TT. If the team was going to protest, it should have pulled out of the race rather than boycotting the podium. Now it's dumb and petty. Obviously the race organization thought Qst would handle it 'in house' the way that they wanted them to, so that the race organizers wouldn't have to appear to be punishing someone for something that wasn't part of the sporting event. But they've gotta commit to their approach - no one looks good here.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Re: Re:

While I see the problem you are outlining in your last sentence, this obviously wasn't the case here. Regarding the likely thought process that led to the organiser's decission which I explained in my post, and that I agree with, we should leave it with the bolded part.

The fact that this wasn't the case here, is of no consequence when you are setting a precedent. The next time it may well be the case, and they can refer to this case. Also, i editted my previous message.

I'd also like to point out that i'm not condoning Keisse's or DQS's behaviour. As mentioned in the DQS topic.