The rider who attacked two Swiss team members during last month’s Tour of Hainan has been handed a two-year suspension for what the Chinese Cycling Association (CCA) called an incident of “irrational violence.” Keyi Look rider Wang Xin will not be allowed to take part in any racing for six months and is barred from joining a professional team until 2019.
His team, their manager and two other members of the team have also been punished for failing to control the rider. None of them will be able to work with a professional cycling team, while the team itself has been forbidden for applying for a licence in 2018.
“The China Cycling Association has always been zero tolerance of the venue violations and violent incidents,” read a statement on the CCA’s website. “The Association requires all domestic and foreign convoys, bicycle teams from all provinces and cities across the country, teams and individuals who participate in various amateur competitions to strictly abide by discipline rules and maintain a good style of racing so as to prevent such incidents from happening again.”
ADVERTISEMENT
The attack stemmed from an incident earlier on stage 7 when the commissaires allowed teams to do some in-race feeding of the riders. The Swiss car was travelling up the left side of the pack when Wang crashed. It appeared that the car had bumped Wang, but Swiss team manager has said that the Chinese rider touched wheels with a rider ahead of him, which resulted in the crash.
“We went slow and stopped on the left side to let the rider pass,” explained Swiss coach and former rider Danilo Hondo. “All of the riders had no problems, just this Chinese rider – he was one of the last in the peloton. You can see on Eurosport, that we stopped and the rider passed us, but then he fell over the back wheel of a rider in front of us.
“We had a journalist in our car, and she worked for the Tour of Hainan as well and she has confirmed to us several times that the rider did a mistake by himself.”
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/2zJCTnL
No comments:
Post a Comment