Porte Penalised 2 minutes for getting Clarkes Wheel -Fair?

[sultanofhyd]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ventoso-wins-hainan-after-penalty-to-shpilevsky

 

[Lance Armstrong]

Re: Porte Penalised 2 minutes for getting Clarkes Wheel -Fai

Hard to blame UCI for following the rules, but the rule itself is wrong. If you can receive food or drinks from riders of other team, why not a wheel?

 

[sultanofhyd]

Re: Porte Penalised 2 minutes for getting Clarkes Wheel -Fai

Hard to blame UCI for following the rules, but the rule itself is wrong. If you can receive food or drinks from riders of other team, why not a wheel?

Riders don't lose two minutes if they drop their drinks bottle.

 

[VDB44]

Meersman got a wheel from TeamSky earlier this Giro, no time penalty there:

http://twitter.com/GianniMeersman/status/597829780256460800

 

[Catwhoorg]

Grrr.

And there is the inconsistency in application.

 

[mufana]

Re: Porte Penalised 2 minutes for getting Clarkes Wheel -Fai

Hard to blame UCI for following the rules, but the rule itself is wrong. If you can receive food or drinks from riders of other team, why not a wheel?

Because it was a nice gesture between 2 mates. Will Clarke do the same for Contador of Aru?

 

[the sceptic]

Good to see the rules being followed for once. Hopefully Porte will learn his lesson.

 

[red_flanders]

Re: Re:

What's baffling for me is that reading Twitter is pretty clear most pros have no idea of what the rules of their sport say.

No pro is familiar with all of the UCIs regulations. Not most pros aren't. No pro is. For that matter, the UCI's in house lawyers won't be familiar with all of them, without going to the written rules to check.

This.

Pros are paid to ride their bikes - not be lawyers. The team have people who know rules. Its the same in most Professional sports.

But in the heat of the moment you don't have time to consult the team car what to do.

On the other hand "marginal gains" should certainly apply to knowing basic rules. Not using a rival teams wheel is kind of basic I think? But did the team car see the incident immediately and have time to instruct Richie over his radio?

I recall when playing football there were a LOT of rules, and a lot of very specific rules. Even though I was a dumb-ass football jock, somehow I had a firm grasp on the rulebook, which I guarantee you is longer than the UCI rules for cycling.

I wish they had not enforced this one. But I also see how they need to. Exchange of equipment is a core violation of what a team's charter is in terms of helping their riders. They can't really allow teams to exchange equipment.

And yes, there is some schadenfreude going on in this thread, but those laughing are the ones that held themselves up as the pinnacle of attention to detail, a claim absurd on its face, being proven over and over to be false.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Anyone who says Porte (or Clarke, or Sky or Brailsford) "should have known" the rules is speaking from a position of complete ignorance of the scale and complexity of the UCI's regulations and does not understand that not one rider in the peloton knows them all. Or, given that this has been pointed out repeatedly, the alternative is that people making that argument are being actively disingenuous.

 

[neineinei]

Re:

Are you saying that the rule I quoted:
3.3. Rider taking off the mandatory helmet disqualified and 100 disqualified and 50
Should not be applied though, or that Contador knew he was breaking it (knowing the rules of the sport he participates in)?

The riders can ask for permission from the race commisar to take the helmet off for a second to take off a cap etc. It happens all the time. If we see Contador taking off his helmet we have no idea if he has asked for permission or not.

 

[Mr.White]

Re: Porte Penalised 2 minutes for getting Clarkes Wheel -Fai

Hard to blame UCI for following the rules, but the rule itself is wrong. If you can receive food or drinks from riders of other team, why not a wheel?

The rule is good, and everybody knows it, except Sky. Seriously I never saw that someone used a wheel from rider of another team, you just don't do that, and here's why

 

[Netserk]

Re:

Grrr.

And there is the inconsistency in application.

You would have to know that the commission was aware that Meersman got a front wheel from another team before you can say that it is an inconsistency in application.

 

[the sceptic]

Re:

This is clear cut case of selective justice and tendentious, malevolent, interpretation of a rule.

 

[Lance Armstrong]

Re:

Meersman got a wheel from TeamSky earlier this Giro, no time penalty there:

http://twitter.com/GianniMeersman/status/597829780256460800

Nothing it that post that would imply he got a new wheel from Sky,

 

[sir fly]

It won't surprise me if the decision gets drawn back by the start of tomorrow's stage.
It has served its PR purpose and really is leaving bitter taste. No one wants a stain on his image.

 

[BigMac]

Re:

Good to see the rules being followed for once. Hopefully Porte will learn his lesson.

What do you mean ''learn his lesson''. You don't believe he did it thinking he could bend the rules, do you?

 

[red_flanders]

Re:

It won't surprise me if the decision gets drawn back by the start of tomorrow's stage.
It has served its PR purpose and really is leaving bitter taste. No one wants a stain on his image.

While I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, and it would be nice, the political reality is that for this ruling to be overturned would REEK of interference from Cookson. Not saying they won't do it, but if they do there will be a reaction.

 

[sir fly]

Re: Re:

This is clear cut case of selective justice and tendentious, malevolent, interpretation of a rule.

What a childish reply.
And it's not even original. A typical Contador fan. Immature, malicious and shallow.

 

[Couq-DK]

Re: Re:

Grrr.

And there is the inconsistency in application.

You would have to know that the commission was aware that Meersman got a front wheel from another team before you can say that it is an inconsistency in application.

Even if they did, then it was not a rider-rider action but a rider-team car interaction. Rules says rider cannot help rider.

 

[King Boonen]

Re:

Meersman got a wheel from TeamSky earlier this Giro, no time penalty there:

http://twitter.com/GianniMeersman/status/597829780256460800

Pretty sure the rule states a rider of another team. If he got one from the Sky team car this wouldn't be a violation.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Re:

Good to see the rules being followed for once. Hopefully Porte will learn his lesson.

What do you mean ''learn his lesson''. You don't believe he did it thinking he could bend the rules, do you?

What all of these people actually mean is that he should learn not to be a Sky rider, or an annoying Australian midget, or a rival to Contador or Aru. Because for one or more of those reasons he had it coming.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

It won't surprise me if the decision gets drawn back by the start of tomorrow's stage.
It has served its PR purpose and really is leaving bitter taste. No one wants a stain on his image.

They absolutely should NOT withdraw the penalty. That would be the worst thing they could do.

At the end of the day, a rule was broken, and it has been publicized and attention drawn to it. If they quietly withdraw the penalty by the morning, it sends the message that actually, you CAN break the rules, and moaning about it loud enough will resolve things in your favour. Clarke and Porte chose to break the rules (although they may not have known they were breaking the rules they chose to exchange wheels) and now have to live with the outcome of it; the jury have chosen to apply the rules harshly and now must be seen to stand by their decision.

There is a difference between a jury being seen as lenient, and a jury being seen as weak. Retracting the penalty will not make them seem lenient (a lenient jury may have proffered a smaller penalty or warnings or whatever rather than applying the penalty the rule calls for in the circumstances), but will make them seem weak.

Brailsford is trying not to lose face by posturing to the jury about the "spirit of the law"; they now need to not lose face by giving in to his demands when the rejection of the decision by the fans and teams is by no means universal.

 

[The Hitch]

I love how so many here have it as a foregone conclusion that Porte was going to take the pink jersey in the tt while Contador will put 2 minutes into Aru, they match eachother in the mountains, the race is over, bla bla bla.

When was the last time 3 seperate riders all performed in a gt exactly as fans expected them too?

 

[sir fly]

Re: Re:

It won't surprise me if the decision gets drawn back by the start of tomorrow's stage.
It has served its PR purpose and really is leaving bitter taste. No one wants a stain on his image.

While I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, and it would be nice, the political reality is that for this ruling to be overturned would REEK of interference from Cookson. Not saying they won't do it, but if they do there will be a reaction.

And Cookson's reaction would provoke a wave of reactions from the other side... GB protectionism and all that.
Careless decision.

 

[Mr.White]

Re:

Anyone who says Porte (or Clarke, or Sky or Brailsford) "should have known" the rules is speaking from a position of complete ignorance of the scale and complexity of the UCI's regulations and does not understand that not one rider in the peloton knows them all. Or, given that this has been pointed out repeatedly, the alternative is that people making that argument are being actively disingenuous.

Well that rule is pretty clear, sanction is pretty clear, there;s nothing shady or gray about this rule. If Sir Dave Brailsford and his team Sky didn't know about this one specifically, then they are bunch of amateurs and they deserve this penalty completely!