Riders and management at Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale have categorically insisted that there was no wrongdoing on their part in the stage 11 incidents that saw Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) crash and four members of Decathlon - one director and three riders - receive penalties and, in some cases, fines.
Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale currently lead the Vuelta a España with Ben O’Connor. The Australian had an uneventful stage 12 on Thursday, but he spent a significant part of the build-up defending his team’s actions to the media.
The fallout from the Carapaz crash and a near-simultaneous road-blocking movement by Decathlon saw their Tour de France stage winner Victor Lafay fined 500 CHF for “obstruction by a rider in order to prevent or delay the movement of another rider or vehicle". Decathlon Sports Director Cyril Dessel was also fined 1,000 CHF, while Lafay, Dessel, and two more riders, Geoffrey Bouchard and Bruno Armirail, were all given ‘yellow cards’, the penalisation system which is being tested out by the UCI this month.
Carapaz was uninjured when he fell in the crash, caused by a brief moment of contact between himself and Bouchard. The accident happened just as the French team were attempting to form the mobile road 'block' after 38 riders, none of them major GC threats, had already formed the breakaway of the day. The only published TV footage to date of the crash, taken from an overhead camera, was hampered from a direct view of Carapaz’s fall by the canopy of a roadside trees.
Speaking before stage 13’s start at Ourense, the 2020 Vuelta a España runner-up categorically put the blame for his fall at the door of Decathlon AG2R, saying “it was very clear". However, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, from Vuelta a España leader Ben O’Connor through to Bouchard and Sports Director Dessel, were equally adamant that there had been no wrongdoing.
The UCI commissiares spent a considerable amount of time talking to different riders at the start of stage 12 but no further penalties emerged as a result.
The one ‘yellow’ card for Thursday went to Israel-Premier Tech rider Nadav Raisberg for “disposing of waste or other objects outside of litter zones". He also received a 500 CHF fine and was docked 25 UCI points for his misdemeanour.
Regarding the more serious events of stage 11 and the yellow cards that followed in their wake, O’Connor was insistent that there had been no offence committed by his team.
“I really think we did absolutely nothing wrong. We’ve spoken to EF together and everything is clear. There was absolutely zero animosity. Geoffrey did absolutely nothing,” O’Connor told reporters before stage 12.
“So I don’t really understand the sanctioning of all the other boys on my team. I was also on the front and I didn’t receive a yellow card, neither did Wout van Aert [Visma-Lease a Bike] who was also riding next to me. What does it mean? I don’t really get it.”
Bouchard himself explained that what he insisted was a chance event had happened when, without changing his line, “Carapaz brushed against my backside and unfortunately he fell.
“I don’t know what happened to him when he crashed, I unclipped and I almost went down myself. In any case, I’m sorry he went down, it was not my objective. It wasn’t in any way aggressive, I talked with his sports director and there were no hard feelings, and that’s it.”
Dessel provided another layer of defence, telling Cyclingnews, “We and the riders are serious people, though, there was no movement to try to bring him down or anything like that".
In his version of events, “[Richard] Carapaz was coming up from behind, there was a narrowing on the road and he collided with Geoffrey [Bouchard] from behind. Carapaz slightly drifted to the left side, then his front wheel swerved on the edge of the narrowing section of road.
“There’s no way you can equate that with a deliberate act by Geoffrey Bouchard to cause Carapaz to crash.”
Dessel was manifestly unimpressed by the penalties doled out by the UCI, as a result, saying, “We accept them, but I find that harsh". Bouchard echoed his words, saying, “I have the impression that social media influenced this decision".
Lots of opinions
Not all social media showed antipathy towards Decathlon AG2R La Mondial, though. O’Connor himself initially published a series of Tweets defending his team’s actions and criticizing the UCI’s penalties, but then subsequently wiped his entire account, saying he did so because he was “sick of other people’s opinions".
“I’ve been wanting to delete it for a long time so this was a good excuse to do it. It’s a happy coincidence, I should have done it a long time ago,” he explained.
The separate question of the ethics of forming a road 'block' also permeated through the controversy, as Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale lined across the width of the road just as Carapaz went down. O’Connor admitted that they had directly informed one long-distance GC threat, Cristian Rodríguez (Arkea-B&B Hotels) that “he wasn’t going to be able to go in the [early] breakaway".
"We said that right from the start when he kept trying. Zero insults, just being clear," he said.
“If you’re in the middle of the peloton, I can’t just tap the bloke in front of me to get to the front. How do you get to the front when the road’s blocked? Answer me that question. Do you say, ‘Just before the climb, can I start first wheel?’ It would be really easy there, but that’s not how the sport works."
“Our riders fight every day to secure the jersey, like every other team would do,” Dessel added. “They sometimes block the whole road a bit but without stopping anybody from moving ahead. We did nothing illegal.”
However, O’Connor denied that just because he had the red jersey of Vuelta leader he was now considered a peloton ‘patron'.
“No, I’m not waving my arms around acting like a king. I think I’m leading this race at the moment and if I relinquish that lead so be it. But it doesn’t change who I am.”
But if some riders and management at Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale delivered strong defences of their actions, others simply switched off and waited for the storm to blow over.
“I don’t really know what this is all about to be honest,” Felix Gall, O’Connor’s wingman, said after stage 12. “There were some talk on the bus but I preferred to put in my earphones, listen to some music and just relax.”
While the debate over barrages and crashes like Carapaz’s will likely rumble on for some time to come, short-term at least the Vuelta will be all but obliged to put the events of stage 11 in the rearview mirror.
Stage 13’s summit finish at Ancares seems certain to create another major GC sort out, and stage 15 to Cuitu Negru is yet another decisive day in the overall battle.
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