close
close

“Disqualification is not the usual sanction” – UCI justifies lack of punishment for Mathieu van der Poel’s “pavement incident” at World Championships

Mathieu van der Poel briefly rode on the pavement at the World Cup and came quite close to the spectators watching the action. It was captured in the race broadcast and led to some complaints – particularly regarding the UCI's inconsistency in applying its own rules. Despite complaints, the Dutchman did not receive any consequences, and the UCI explains why that was the case.

The incident occurred well into the race when the drivers were in the middle of a battle for victory. For just a few seconds, van der Poel jumped onto the pavement to overtake some riders, which fans on social media took particular note of. However, no consequences, including a fine, are assured. The Latvian federation later filed a public complaint correctly assessing the situation as some sort of violation of the rules (although this was largely due to Toms Skujins of Latvia finishing one position behind van der Poel and out of the medals in fourth place) .


The open letter criticized the dismissal of the UCI commissioners because of the incident. However, after gaining a lot of traction, there was a need to respond to this situation. Now the sports association has explained why there were no consequences for the former world champion:

“The UCI recognizes the open letter from the Latvian Cycling Federation. The committee of UCI commissioners is responsible for the sporting supervision of events. In the current situation, it was determined that sanctions were not necessary. In a set of rules like this, it should be underlined that disqualification is not the usual sanction – points deduction and a fine – and that it only occurs “in cases of significant advantage, danger, repeated infringements or aggravating circumstances”. This situation did not fall under the circumstances mentioned above.”

Van der Poel managed to keep his bronze medal; However, it is quite unclear why there was no fine, UCI points penalty or the infamous “yellow card” that was commonly used at La Vuelta.

= data-service=”twitter”>

You may also like...