Rigoberto Uran finished safely in the front group of overall contenders in Foix after another strong ride during stage 13 at the Tour de France, but the final day in the Pyrenees had a sense of success after the UCI back-tracked on their decision to penalise Uran and gave him back the 20 seconds he had been docked. It was a victory for his Cannondale-Drapac team after mounting a strong protest after Thursday’s stage.
The UCI were forced to embarrassingly reverse their initial ruling and admitted that "race circumstances" had left teams unable to feed their riders as usual. They cancelled the 20-second penalty inflicted on Uran for taking a bottle from a roadside 'friend' of the team.
Uran finished in the slipstream of race leader Fabio Aru (Astana) in Foix and so is still fourth overall. With his 20-second penalty removed, he is now only 35 seconds back on Aru, 29 seconds behind Chris Froome (Team Sky) and 10 seconds down on Romain Bardet (AG2R-La Mondiale).
ADVERTISEMENT
"It was a good day all round," Cannondale-Drapac directeur sportif Charly Wegelius told Cyclingnews after debriefing with fellow director sportifs Tom Southam and Andreas Kleir.
"Getting the 20-second penalty back is very important. We're happy and thankful that the UCI came to that conclusion, that they chose to see the spirit of the rule expressed as it should be. It's extremely difficult to feed riders in the finale of a mountain stage at the Tour de France because of the huge crowds and all the race traffic. Taking a bidon from the side of the road has zero impact on the result of the race and so it's a fair decision."
Chasing a podium spot in Paris
Cannondale-Drapac had a good start to their Tour de France with Taylor Phinney and then Nate Brown wearing the polka-dot jersey and other riders going in breakaways and fighting for stage victories.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/2ujGc1C
No comments:
Post a Comment