Visma-Lease a Bike have offered an apology after Axel Zingle was disqualified from the E3 Saxo Classic for taking a long tow or sticky bottle from a team car on Friday.
Zingle suffered a flat tyre during the race and whilst chasing back on was towed back, at speed and at length, by the Visma car. Though not caught on the race broadcast, a roadside fan took a damning video of the incident, which ultimately led to the Frenchman's punishment.
Disqualified from the race and pulled out by commissaires before the finish, Zingle was subsequently awarded a yellow card and a deduction of 100 UCI points.
Later on Friday, it also emerged that Visma team boss Richard Plugge, who was driving the following car, had also been given a yellow card and a 500-CHF fine.
"We received a report 10 kilometres from the finish line that Zingle had been taken out of the race," team DS Maarten Wynants told Sporza. "At first we didn't know what it was about, but later we heard there were images of him hanging onto the car."
The team then issued a formal apology in a statement shared with the Dutch and Belgian press.
"We regret the incident," they said. "This does not contribute to the image of cycling. It happened [off the back of the bunch] after a flat tyre, and it did not affect the result, but it should not have happened.
"Once again: we regret the incident and accept the blame. Just because something like this happens frequently in races does not give us the right to do the same."
Under the relatively new yellow card rules, if Zingle or Plugge receive subsequent yellow cards in the next 30 days they will face further punishment, including possible suspensions.
Sticky bottles and longer-than-permitted towing or drafting are not uncommon sights at the back of a race, but are often not caught on TV coverage and not seen by commissaires, so often go unpunished. In this case, however, Visma have fallen foul of social media, where fans and commissaires can see much more than ever before.
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