Officials at the Abu Dhabi Tour have disqualified Bora-Argon 18 rider Paul Voss from the race, and he has been sent directly home, following an altercation with UnitedHealthcare’s Federico Zurlo (UnitedHealthcare) during the intermediate sprint in stage 2 on Friday. Despite Voss' complaint that Zurlo 'intentionally' crossed his sprint line, the Italian was not reprimanded and he remains in ninth place overall.
Voss was leading the event’s sprint classification after being involved in previous day’s stage 1 breakaway and winning the second intermediate sprint. He was tied on points with William Clarke (Drapac) and Francisco Mancebo (Skydive Dubai) with 8 points, while Alessandro Bazzana (UnitedHealthcare) was fourth with four points.
Voss and Bazzana were involved in the stage 2 breakaway that also included Zurlo, Soufiane Haddi (Skydive Dubai), Belkov (Katusha) and Daniel Patten (Wiggins).
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Approaching the intermediate sprint during the day’s 129km stage from Yas Marina to Marina Island, Zurlo led out the sprint for his teammate Bazzana, however, he swung off into Voss’ line, which caused Voss to ride into the curb and nearly crash. Bazzana won the sprint and took the lead of that classification.
According to Bora-Argon 18 director Ralph Denk, there was a “scuffle” between the Voss and Zurlo following the intermediate sprint, which ultimately resulted in Voss being disqualified from the race.
"Sprints are always competitive - as the intermediate sprint today makes no exception. Unfortunately, a short scuffle occurred afterwards. Of course, this shouldn’t happen. I just talked with two guys again and for them the issue was settled in the race already. Therefore both were surprised that the jury took this decision. But we have to accept it."
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