I think we should not be too hard or critical when judging Mathieu. We weren’t there, and obviously these kids created a situation that made everyone unhappy. But I think the situation will be cleared, and everyone will be able to watch themselves in the mirror.
Sadly MvDP then DNF, but Remco probably was too strong, anyways. So Mathieu would have had to race for Silver, but a rider like him understandably does not ride such a race for Silver. He said beforehand he wasn‘t at 100% anyways, so beating Remco would have been incredibly hard. And Mathieu certainly knows that.
Pro cycling‘s history shows some incidents that were much more severe than Mathieu‘s hotel incident. I for example immediately remembered the little-known LPR team incident in Emilia, Italy, from winter training period 2003/2004. LPR (good PCT) obviously paid their riders not very well, so riders Konyshev (father of Bike Exchange‘s Konyshev), Ivanov, Karpachev and Pidgornyy recovered from their winter training day‘s ride by assaulting and robbing a prostitute. I was very surprised when I read from this incident back in the days, because I rather didn‘t think pro cyclists would do something like that… (Edit, link:
https://wielrennen.startpagina.nl/forum/topic/1829831/konychev-gearresteerd/ )