Froome stays in yellow, the right decision?

[Microchip]

It's difficult to be an armchair 'juror', or couch, or chaise lounge, whatever suits your fancy.

On the one hand, there seems to be a distinct impression to ensure he doesn't lose a single second on his way to Paris, on the other hand there seems a good case for alotting them the same times.

At times like this, I'd prefer to work in a press room with sports reporters watching the Tour so I can get the true story.

 

[cineteq]

Re: Re:

Was Mollema given the time he got on Froome? If so, it's wrong for the same reason exposed!

Okay, I see. And the decision to give Mollema's time to Froome is based on the truth of what caused the incident, which in this case was the crowd. Okay, got it.

If the incident was caused by the crowd, then it was the right decision to neutralize the GC time gaps. It doesn't matter if Froome ran or not, or Quintana got a lift.

 

[Journey Man]

Re: Re:

because it was merely a request....that could be ignored

Mark L

I think that would be a valid view if it wasn't the yellow jersey, winner of the last few years, making the call with Cancellara joining in and slowing the peloton. If it was, say, Kelderman, would the peloton have reacted? Probably not, and your view would be borne out. However you disregard the authority given to the yellow jersey.

 

[armchairclimber]

Interesting thread. It's good to see balance and pragmatism expressed in amongst the posts which are simply informed by a like/dislike of Froome/Sky.
It really is remarkable that we don't see this kind of incident more often. I often wonder how the hell riders manage to keep their momentum when threading through the narrow channel between fans on mountain top finishes.
I am no fan of Froome (though I have respect for the way he has gone about racing this year). I don't think the race jury had much option, and I do think that they arrived at the fairest outcome they could have really. The GC was a fairly close approximation to how it might have looked without the incident and, more crucially, it sent out a message that the race organisers will look at incidents where fan behaviour interferes with the race result, without necessarily setting a precedent of a given outcome. That's what race juries are for.
I speak as someone who would have loved to see Yates in Yellow.

 

[cellardoor]

I'm not a Froome fan and I was a big fan of the way the GC looked initially after the incident and in particular I feel for Mollema who was on perhaps one of the best days of his career and seems to have been the most hard done by...however, this is my view of the incident: I don't think we should pay too much attention to past incidents of a similar nature - the fact that people were hard done by in the past doesn't mean we need to continue doing the same. I also don't think we should perform mental gymnastics in terms of future hypothetical scenarios that may occur. If such scenarios occur they can be dealt with on their merits at that time. Sometimes it just isn't possible to rectify a situation and sometimes the race is not affected in a significant enough way to justify a neutralisation/adjustment.

In this case, the race was affected in a very significant way by an incident that is the organisers fault, which should not have happened and which should not be part of bike racing. At the same time there was potential to make an adjustment that would be reasonably fair to all involved (i.e. take times from the incident which was actually pretty close to the finish). The rules should be a guide as to how to handle such situations but the rules can't legislate for every wacko scenario that could occur and which was not really envisaged when the rules were created. In such scenarios the commissioners are correct to make a judgement about the spirit of the rules rather than just blindly applying the rules in a rigid fashion. So, we don't need to labour over the exact wording of the rules - just come to a decision which is as fair as possible, but without blatently going against the rules that are clear. In this respect, I think the correct decision was made even if it isn't really the decision I wanted from a selfish point of view.

 

[sienna]

Monty Python couldn't have dreamt this *** up. :Neutral:

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re: Re:

You mean if nothing was done about the time and Yates put on the yellow and so on, he should have been penalised? (Just trying to understand what I'm reading.)

If so, an incident must take place for someone to end up without his bike, resulting in the temptation to run. The thing is that besides the incident, he transgressed a rule, which the jury president verified, but also said that they chose to waive the penalty.

Either you acknowledge that an incident out of the control of the rider happened. Therefore you completely neutralise it

Or you say tough luck, and continue as if everything happened normally. And if everything happened normally, then Froome should also have been penalised for running without his bike and Quintana should have been DQ

 

[Journey Man]

Re:

I often wonder how the hell riders manage to keep their momentum when threading through the narrow channel between fans on mountain top finishes.
I am no fan of Froome (though I have respect for the way he has gone about racing this year). I don't think the race jury had much option, and I do think that they arrived at the fairest outcome they could have really. The GC was a fairly close approximation to how it might have looked without the incident...

Regarding Froome, not a fan but have respected his race this year and enjoyed Sky's use of the element of surprise. I also think regarding the moto incident, it was beyond the riders control. Force majeure, if you will. However, I would have liked some consideration of the fact that Froome already benefited from bringing his riders bacon earlier and affecting the races of the lower ranked GC contenders.

As for the tight corridors of spectators, I think it's really ruining the racing. Whenever a rider attacks, they usually cut across laterally to accelerate and try to have a clean rear wheel. This is impossible with the crowds. There is hardly chance to go around the other riders. Whilst it will be a shame to lose this aspect of professional racing, the fans are forcing the hand of the organisers.

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re: Re:

In all honesty, Mollema shouldn't have carried on when Froome and Porte went down with the motorbike, and that's where the problem lies. If he had stopped, the peloton would have stopped too, and we wouldn't need the commissaires to get involved at all. Instead Mollema tried to take advantage of the situation

 

[IndianCyclist]

Just to remind that it was not entirely in the organizers hand. First they had to cancel part of the Ventoux climb due to gusts of wind(Force of nature). Then they could not put up the barriers because they might get blown onto the road/spectators or even riders. Part of the blame also lies with the fans

 

[Carols]

Re:

The fact people are still more upset that Froome less than 100m because he has no bike, than Quintana who held onto a motorbike going up the hill, while no else in his group says it all about people in the forum trying to find reasons to hate Froome and match their conspiracy theories

Well this wasn't the thread to discuss Quintana, it is a Froome tread. IMO they both should be tossed.

 

[roundabout]

Re: Re:

The fact people are still more upset that Froome less than 100m because he has no bike, than Quintana who held onto a motorbike going up the hill, while no else in his group says it all about people in the forum trying to find reasons to hate Froome and match their conspiracy theories

Well this wasn't the thread to discuss Quintana, it is a Froome tread. IMO they both should be tossed.

And yet you think Contador won 9 GTs.

lol

 

[doperhopper]

Re: Re:

In all honesty, Mollema shouldn't have carried on when Froome and Porte went down with the motorbike, and that's where the problem lies. If he had stopped, the peloton would have stopped too, and we wouldn't need the commissaires to get involved at all. Instead Mollema tried to take advantage of the situation

well, so anytime there's any crash (or also mechanical?) everyone should stop?

or uphill only?

or last 3/2/1/5 km only?

or only when spectators are involved?

or only when the yellow jersey is involved?

or?

when one group stops, the one behind will catch them, the one upfront runs away... what to do with time gaps? neutralize at the moment of crash? who's the stage winner then? what to do if the gaps are not very clear? if it's e.g. 10k to go uphill, someone who launched crazy attack and was to be caught and cracked with 2k to go may get huge advantage... but how can we know? etc. etc.

questions, questions

one simply cannot solve all situations like this by a general rule - and certainly not using "fairness" argument (it will be always good for one, bad for another)

because in general, everything is considered to be "part of the race", including cars, motos, spectators, dogs, cows, objects on the road... and only in certain very special cases neutralizations are used (e.g. train crossing incidents, falling inflatables, protesting farmers) - and this is completely in hands of the officials, and it was, is, and will be inconsistent, however they try to "apply the same rule"

in this incident it was relatively easy using the "restore the race" narrative (produce the result as close as possible to the one without an incident - still, no fairness if you consider incidents to be part of the race), because it was near the finish, but one can imagine much less clear scenario, although the farther from the finish, the easier to stop/restart everyone

 

[PremierAndrew]

If a moto is taking the gc guys out, then yes, the riders should neutralise the race themselves

 

[Hugo Koblet]

The more I think of this, the more I'm sure it's the wrong decision. What are they gonna do the next time this happens, only this time it's to the rider leading the stage who then gets overtaken by another rider?

 

[samhocking]

The decision to take Mollemas finish time effectively gained everyone including Quintana's group, 15 seconds on Mollema group had there not been a crash, because that's roughly how much time Mollema was delayed in the crash. Quintana showed no signs of catching up with Mollema towards the line after he passed Froome. In fact, when Mollema crashed, Quintana was 26 seconds back down the mountain. Taking the 15 seconds, Mollema was not moving forwards after crashing off his finish time and we assume Quintana wasn't delayed much ore than a couple of seconds by the crash itself. So, Quintana actually lost another 30 seconds in that last 1km to the line compared to Mollema, who we assume Froome might have stayed within a few seconds at the line. So, in reality, Quintana would have lost about 1 minute to Froome had there not been a crash. Of course Quintana & Yates lost lost 2 minutes to Froome in the ITT. Had the stage times up ventoux been ignored completely, Froome was 35 seconds on GC ahead of Quintana and would now be 2:35 ahead of him after the timetrial.

So in reality, nullifying the ventoux stage, Quintana would enter the next mountain stages about 2:35 down on Froome.
Taking the actual times as of Froome & Quintana at the finish line of Ventoux, Quintana would enter the next mountain stages 2:39 down on Froome.
Going with Mollema's time as has obviously happened, means Quintana enters the next mountain stages 2:59 down on Froome.

However you cut it, Froome is in yellow still after the TT and Quintana is a similar amount of time down on Froome. Froome just didn't loose enough time on GC to be that significant because Quintana rode that last 1km 30 seconds slower than Mollema and Yates only 7 seconds faster than Quintana. The bigger looser is Porte as he effectively lost, not gained the 15 seconds on the yellow jersey and was attacking Froome, or at least it looked like he was trying something anyway before the crash.

 

[Jakub]

so I have seen Quintana doing Nibali. But Aru was also mentioned to cheat - that I haven't seen yet - is there a video somewhere?

 

[DanielSong39]

Basically, the judges closed their eyes and pretended that Porte never crashed into the motorbike. So none of the subsequent events ever happened.

OK, onto Stage 15 now. Alien mode will gain more time!

 

[samhocking]

Re:

....think back to when lance in yellow got his bars tangled in a spectator and fell..............ulrich

and a small group soft pedaled to allow lance to remount and catch up..

that's how it always was.....mollema thought differently

Mark L

The difference, is Lance didn't crash with 1km to go, his bike still worked and even if he did need a new bike, his team car wasn't blocked by fans and commisair who couldn't get out of the way. No rider or team will ever complain they should get same time if they have a puncture, or mechanical in the last 1km of an MTF if their team car can get to them. As the yellow jersey, Sky would be team car position 1 anyway, so couldn't be any closer, but they were obviously behind Quintana because the gap hadn't reached a minute. Even if it had, there's no way your team car would have passed until the full barriers sections and that's why Froome was running that way, to get into open space so his spare bike could be driven upto him.

Had this happened on the full Ventoux finish, same distance from line, Froome would have lost his time, no doubt, but then he would have had his team car able to get to him as that section of road would be open as the barriers would typically be there.

 

[Geraint Too Fast]

Re: Re:

In all honesty, Mollema shouldn't have carried on when Froome and Porte went down with the motorbike, and that's where the problem lies. If he had stopped, the peloton would have stopped too, and we wouldn't need the commissaires to get involved at all. Instead Mollema tried to take advantage of the situation

How dare Mollema try to take advantage of a situation which disadvantaged him.

 

[Geraint Too Fast]

Re:

....think back to when lance in yellow got his bars tangled in a spectator and fell..............ulrich

and a small group soft pedaled to allow lance to remount and catch up..

that's how it always was.....mollema thought differently

Mark L

In that scenario, Mollema = Mayo not Ullrich. Did Mayo wait for Armstrong?

 

[roundabout]

Kinda, he didn't lift the pace until Armstrong made it back

Although it is also possible that he needed a bit of recovery time after his own chase

 

[Tonton]

Re: Re:

Either you acknowledge that an incident out of the control of the rider happened. Therefore you completely neutralise it

Or you say tough luck, and continue as if everything happened normally. And if everything happened normally, then Froome should also have been penalised for running without his bike and Quintana should have been DQ

Tough luck should have prevailed. Froome penalized, Quintana DQed.

Froome would be a hero for all the fans, even his many detractors would give him props, instead of these mixed reactions. And by now, he'd be back in yellow. Not DQed, because it only applies to crossing the finish line without a bike.

Quintana DQed. Like Nibali was last year. Caught red handed, on tape, no further question your honor as they say. And now Don Alejandro, who looks quite good so far, would be racing for himself and aiming at the podium.

The comparison with the Lance-Ulle episode isn't right: it wasn't the same distance to the finish. Here, it was the dash to the finish: you don't/can't wait.

 

[yespatterns]

Safe to say Mollema is a punk attacking when the jerseys bike was crushed by a moto. And then complaining after. What a *** chump. And I don't even like froome, but what a jerk for basic lack of sportsmanship.

 

[Carols]

Safe to say Mollema is a punk attacking when the jerseys bike was crushed by a moto. And then complaining after. What a **** chump. And I don't even like froome, but what a jerk for basic lack of sportsmanship.

Well I'm of the old racing mentality (being old), it's a race not a tea party and racers race.