Giro Stage 10 - spoilers

tailwindhome

RichN95 wrote:

I've seen a lot of people saying 'rules are rules' etc, but...

...I've haven't seen one single person who complained about the incident as being unfair before they knew about the rule. The reaction to Clarke was entirely positive.

Dogmatic adherance to the rules doesn't guarantee justice.

Sometimes people get upset when they realise that they didn't actually know about a rule.

taon24

adr82 wrote:

"Possibly, maybe, reduced slightly"... are you serious? There's no way that "possibly, maybe, reduced slightly" plus actually losing 47 seconds is worth an additional 2 minute penalty. That's the problem with this whole thing, the failure to apply any common sense to it.

And no, it's not any kind of advantage for Porte. He lost a lot of time on a stage where 99 times in 100 he would have finished in the bunch. There is no way you can spin it into being an advantage. He could have counted himself lucky it wasn't even more of a gap (before the jury got involved anyway), but it was still hardly ideal for his GC chances.

Finally,... he had still lost significant time. They knew it didn't make a "significant difference" to the result - if you puncture a few k from the finish of a flat stage you're almost inevitably going to lose time however many friends help you out, and that's exactly what happened. This wasn't a long chase where an extra teammate could have made a real difference. Effectively all they did was penalise him for getting a puncture at the wrong time.

You don't dispute that he may have gained an advantage from not losing a team mate, (who would have been left holding a bike without a front wheel), and in fact agree that this may have saved him some time. I agree we cannot be sure though, but back the officials who have clearly treated this case as if it has made a difference.

You simply dispute that as the overall result was a disadvantage he cannot have had any advantage to be penalised for.

I suggest therefore that all stage races have motors in their bottom brackets, which are unplugged, and only plugged in to prevent time loss in case of mechanicals. Sure, the use of motors is against the rules, but as the overall result was a disadvantage (loss of time), it's cool?

I agree that the stage result difference is minor, a wheel change from someone else may have made a few seconds difference at most, however the time loss might affect the overall GC, which you clearly agree with. You however then argue that this doesn't constitute a 'significant difference', I would argue that almost anything affecting a race for the top of the GC or a stage win, or one of the Jerseys could be called significant, especially when the race has been won/lost by 16 seconds in recent years.
Therefore the officials are within their rights to state that this is not a case which can be glossed over as fairly irrelevant, as it may impact the overall, and therefore they have to make the difficult decision as to whether to apply the full rules.

adr82 wrote:

Well maybe they should rethink having national teams in the WCs then, to avoid giving that attitude any encouragement? But the rule in question here says absolutely nothing about nationality and so it's not really relevant to the discussion. It could just as easily have been a friend from a different country giving him a wheel.

OGE is an Australian team, with Clarke an Australian rider, supporting an Australian GC contender. I agree it was in this case a case of a mate helping out a mate, but the problem is that the officials don't want to set a precedent that would enable/allow teams to collude.
If an Astana or Tinkoff rider had given Porte a wheel, would the penalty have been applied? I suspect not, as there is no hint of collusion, and you then get the difficult question whether the rider offering the wheel knew the rule that Porte would be penalised and would drop 2 minutes further behind Aru/Contador

If the race jury had decided to waive the penalty, I wouldn't complain. But equally I don't think you can criticise them for applying the penalty, as a rule has been broken, and it may have made a very small difference. The situation is complicated and I much prefer commenting on the decision, to have been the one making it.

adr82

taon24 wrote:

You don't dispute that he may have gained an advantage from not losing a team mate, (who would have been left holding a bike without a front wheel), and in fact agree that this may have saved him some time. I agree we cannot be sure though, but back the officials who have clearly treated this case as if it has made a difference.

I said that the chances of him reducing his gap to the bunch through the availability of an extra teammate were not very high at all, purely because of the minimal distance to the finish and the natural high pace at that point on a flattish stage. He seems to have had 4 of them with him judging from the photos, do you really think being limited to 3 would have made much impact over ~5k?

taon24 wrote:

You simply dispute that as the overall result was a disadvantage he cannot have had any advantage to be penalised for.

Not exactly. My point is that any potential advantage he gained from getting a wheel all of 2 or 3 seconds earlier than he would have anyway is not worth anything compared to the very real 47 seconds he lost. Any situation that involved finishing behind the bunch was a disadvantage to him. The only way I can see that you can think it's an "advantage" worth caring about is if you ignore virtually all the context surrounding the incident in order to focus on the actual wheel change itself. Sure, he broke the rule, but we see riders breaking rules in every race and generally going unpunished, especially when it's obvious that they are not gaining a clear advantage over everyone else (eg hopping through the cars, as Uran did the other day to get back in the bunch after he crashed).

taon24 wrote:

I suggest therefore that all stage races have motors in their bottom brackets, which are unplugged, and only plugged in to prevent time loss in case of mechanicals. Sure, the use of motors is against the rules, but as the overall result was a disadvantage (loss of time), it's cool?

Who said anything about about preventing time loss to mechanicals? They're part of racing and I have no problem with that. My point is that a rider who had already lost a lot of time to a mechanical was excessively penalised solely for trying to limit that loss in a way that in all likelihood made no difference to the outcome.

taon24 wrote:

I agree that the stage result difference is minor, a wheel change from someone else may have made a few seconds difference at most, however the time loss might affect the overall GC, which you clearly agree with. You however then argue that this doesn't constitute a 'significant difference', I would argue that almost anything affecting a race for the top of the GC or a stage win, or one of the Jerseys could be called significant, especially when the race has been won/lost by 16 seconds in recent years.
Therefore the officials are within their rights to state that this is not a case which can be glossed over as fairly irrelevant, as it may impact the overall, and therefore they have to make the difficult decision as to whether to apply the full rules.

Let me put it this way: if the jury had never bothered doing anything, if the "non-regulation assistance" rule didn't exist or had been written to exclude situations like this, do you think Contador/Aru/Uran would been complaining about what Porte did? Do you think the media and fans would be outraged? It's so blindingly obvious that he gained no real advantage by it, as indicated by the pre-jury reactions usually being along the lines of "That's a nice gesture by Clarke" rather than "Porte is a cheater, booooo".

taon24 wrote:

OGE is an Australian team, with Clarke an Australian rider, supporting an Australian GC contender. I agree it was in this case a case of a mate helping out a mate, but the problem is that the officials don't want to set a precedent that would enable/allow teams to collude.
If an Astana or Tinkoff rider had given Porte a wheel, would the penalty have been applied? I suspect not, as there is no hint of collusion, and you then get the difficult question whether the rider offering the wheel knew the rule that Porte would be penalised and would drop 2 minutes further behind Aru/Contador

That's why they already have rules intended to prevent such collusion. However I'm not complaining about the rules, I'm complaining about the way they chose to enforce them. Interesting that you appear to think the rule would not have applied to another rider, because it just says "Non-regulation assistance to a rider of another team", no hint of any national considerations. I wouldn't be surprised if you were correct, but then that would just prove the point (as if any more proof were needed) that their enforcement of the rules in general is extremely inconsistent and open to question.

taon24 wrote:

If the race jury had decided to waive the penalty, I wouldn't complain. But equally I don't think you can criticise them for applying the penalty, as a rule has been broken, and it may have made a very small difference. The situation is complicated and I much prefer commenting on the decision, to have been the one making it.

I absolutely can criticise them. It was an incredibly disproportionate response. It would have been a bit more understandable if it'd been an on-the-spot decision by a commissaire seeing the wheel change without knowing how things were going to play out, but the jury didn't have that excuse.

disgruntledgoat

Dolan Driver wrote:

Crozza wrote:

frenchfighter wrote:

excerpt:
Ian Gutierrez, a Spanish rider from Caisse d’Epargne, tried to give Contador his water bottle after he was caught following an early day breakaway. Gutierrez stated that he, “offered him (Contador) my bottle because I saw that he didn’t have any water and I am his friend.” But Armstrong intercepted the attempted pass. To add insult to injury, after Contador locked in the victory in the Tour at the stage’s end, Armstrong didn’t bother to attend the celebratory team dinner that night.

ha, Lance really was a douche

Indeed, he was a cheeky bugger.

DD.

For maximum effect he should have then chucked it in a ditch. Just out of badness. Then laughed like a crazy person.

disgruntledgoat

frenchfighter wrote:

Yes. I'm not making it up :roll:

It is pretty small compared to what Armstrong and Bruyneel did to Contador in that 2009 Tour. It is pretty amazing. For the Anncey TT, Contador had to buy his own wheels and his brother had to pick him up from the hotel and rush him to the start as his team 'forgot' to collect him.

One day, I'm going to have an Iain-esque list of people who know people and write the definitive oral history of that Tour. I'm sure Contador wasn't a naif by that point, but the constant attempts by his own team to screw him make his utter dominance of 2009 all the more impressive.

ddraver

I think festina girl (of all people) may have beated you to it DG

taon24

adr82 wrote:

I said that the chances of him reducing his gap to the bunch through the availability of an extra teammate were not very high at all, purely because of the minimal distance to the finish and the natural high pace at that point on a flattish stage. He seems to have had 4 of them with him judging from the photos, do you really think being limited to 3 would have made much impact over ~5k?

Yes, a few seconds less time loss, see the (track) team pursuit for the difference between 3 and 4 riders over 4k

adr82 wrote:

taon24 wrote:

You simply dispute that as the overall result was a disadvantage he cannot have had any advantage to be penalised for.

Not exactly. My point is that any potential advantage he gained from getting a wheel all of 2 or 3 seconds earlier than he would have anyway is not worth anything compared to the very real 47 seconds he lost. Any situation that involved finishing behind the bunch was a disadvantage to him. The only way I can see that you can think it's an "advantage" worth caring about is if you ignore virtually all the context surrounding the incident in order to focus on the actual wheel change itself. Sure, he broke the rule, but we see riders breaking rules in every race and generally going unpunished, especially when it's obvious that they are not gaining a clear advantage over everyone else (eg hopping through the cars, as Uran did the other day to get back in the bunch after he crashed).

He is being punished for 'advantages' from the wheel change coming from a non-team mate. Nothing else is relevant to the punishment.
You can ignore the rest of the situation, as you rightly point out, because the rest of it is a normal part of racing. There is no advantage or disadvantage to him losing time, it just happened because of a racing incident. Therefore the time already lost (47s) is not a punishment, but a consequence of the initial puncture (He could have ridden on solid tyres if he really wanted to avoid a puncture.)
Drafting cars seems to be generally accepted method of getting back on, within reason, Uran probably drafted the cars from multiple teams, and the same would have happened for anyone else from any of those teams.

adr82 wrote:

Who said anything about about preventing time loss to mechanicals? They're part of racing and I have no problem with that. My point is that a rider who had already lost a lot of time to a mechanical was excessively penalised solely for trying to limit that loss in a way that in all likelihood made no difference to the outcome.

A motor would reduce the time loss to a mechanical, and if, as you seem to suggest, riders get no punishment if they already lose time then they may as well break any and all rules to reduce the time loss.
I contest that it made a small difference to the time loss, not no difference, an important distinction.
The punishment, was as I understand, the bottom end of the scale. Disqualification would have been excessive.

I agree it was a good sporting gesture by Clarke, but it isn't clear Clarke would have done it for Aru and Contador, therefore it is not an entirely balanced situation, unlike Uran drafting cars, where every team would help and be helped, and I don't think therefore that it is unfair for them to enforce the rule. Once they have chosen to enforce the rule, which I agree they could have waived, but came to the measured decision not to, the response is to apply the minimum punishment. This punishmet seems to be set at 200 CHF and 2 minutes. They might have reduced it, but that would seem to be arbitrary, in the same way that you feel the punishment at all is.

adr82

taon24 wrote:

Yes, a few seconds less time loss, see the (track) team pursuit for the difference between 3 and 4 riders over 4k

So in other words, no, it wouldn't have made much impact.

taon24 wrote:

He is being punished for 'advantages' from the wheel change coming from a non-team mate. Nothing else is relevant to the punishment. You can ignore the rest of the situation, as you rightly point out, because the rest of it is a normal part of racing. There is no advantage or disadvantage to him losing time, it just happened because of a racing incident. Therefore the time already lost (47s) is not a punishment, but a consequence of the initial puncture (He could have ridden on solid tyres if he really wanted to avoid a puncture.)
Drafting cars seems to be generally accepted method of getting back on, within reason, Uran probably drafted the cars from multiple teams, and the same would have happened for anyone else from any of those teams.

I did not claim the 47s was a punishment. I think it was a reason not apply the punishment because, for the millionth time, he clearly gained nothing significant from the wheel change, and didn't even instigate it himself as Clarke stopped to help him. Sure, he could have said "No don't do that", but given the context I can understand his desire to just get moving again as soon as possible.

If nothing else is relevant to being punished other than the situation at the instant the act of breaking the rule takes place, then again, drafting the cars (and similar behaviour) should be punished probably dozens of times every race. It's the context and understanding that no advantage is typically being gained that prevents this from happening. People know that someone chasing back through the cars is a) not trying to gain an advantage over the rest of the field but simply trying to rejoin it and b) are still having to expend effort to do so rather than getting a completely free ride. Exactly the same applies here. I think there's a need for the rule to exist, but I also think there's scope for being a bit more sensible about applying it to situations where it was clear the intent wasn't deliberate collusion to gain an unfair advantage.

Or you can look at the halfhearted calls for Contador to be disqualified for briefly taking his helmet off. The rule seems very clear, you take it off during a race and you get disqualified and fined, there's no other punishment listed. Nothing happened of course, because it was clear he was just taking it off for a few seconds to do something with his cap. Context again.

taon24 wrote:

A motor would reduce the time loss to a mechanical, and if, as you seem to suggest, riders get no punishment if they already lose time then they may as well break any and all rules to reduce the time loss.
I contest that it made a small difference to the time loss, not no difference, an important distinction.
The punishment, was as I understand, the bottom end of the scale. Disqualification would have been excessive.

I have been talking about this one very specific incident, not ridiculous generalisations like that. If the puncture had happened 30k earlier it wouldn't have been talked about at all because Porte would have had a much easier job getting back into the bunch and that frantic wheel change wouldn't have been so likely. As it happened, his puncture caused him a large loss of time, and while a rule was technically broken, I believe a jury with a little more imagination could have declined to impose any punishment by considering everything that took place and recognising that no advantage had been gained. As I've said, I think rules against deliberate collusion are necessary, but just like a lot of the other rules they should be enforced with a little thought.

taon24 wrote:

I agree it was a good sporting gesture by Clarke, but it isn't clear Clarke would have done it for Aru and Contador, therefore it is not an entirely balanced situation, unlike Uran drafting cars, where every team would help and be helped, and I don't think therefore that it is unfair for them to enforce the rule. Once they have chosen to enforce the rule, which I agree they could have waived, but came to the measured decision not to, the response is to apply the minimum punishment. This punishmet seems to be set at 200 CHF and 2 minutes. They might have reduced it, but that would seem to be arbitrary, in the same way that you feel the punishment at all is.

It's not that he was punished at all, it's that the punishment was a full 2 minute time penalty. If they'd simply fined both of them, or given them a smaller time penalty of maybe 10-20s, I think that would have been far more appropriate and far less controversial. 2 minutes is a huge amount. "Wilful obstruction" of another rider or team car is 10 seconds for the first offence. Drafting a car "for some time" is 20 seconds. "Acts of violence" towards other riders only carries a 1 minute penalty!

bompington

disgruntledgoat wrote:

frenchfighter wrote:

Yes. I'm not making it up :roll:

It is pretty small compared to what Armstrong and Bruyneel did to Contador in that 2009 Tour. It is pretty amazing. For the Anncey TT, Contador had to buy his own wheels and his brother had to pick him up from the hotel and rush him to the start as his team 'forgot' to collect him.

One day, I'm going to have an Iain-esque list of people who know people and write the definitive oral history of that Tour. I'm sure Contador wasn't a naif by that point, but the constant attempts by his own team to screw him make his utter dominance of 2009 all the more impressive.

Yeah. No wonder he resorted to drugs.

disgruntledgoat

ddraver wrote:

I think festina girl (of all people) may have beated you to it DG

I said definitive. I refuse to be beaten by somebody who's debating tactics are "somebody told me something, but I can't tell you" and when challenged climbing back to "I was testing you!"

taon24

adr82 wrote:

So in other words, no, it wouldn't have made much impact.

But some impact, I agree, which is all that is necessary and sufficient to apply some punishment.

adr82 wrote:

I did not claim the 47s was a punishment. I think it was a reason not apply the punishment because, for the millionth time, he clearly gained nothing significant from the wheel change, and didn't even instigate it himself as Clarke stopped to help him. Sure, he could have said "No don't do that", but given the context I can understand his desire to just get moving again as soon as possible.

So no punishment for breaking rules if you lose time? You have suggested that you don't punish people for breaking rules because...?
You are right he should, unfortuately, have said 'No'

adr82 wrote:

If nothing else is relevant to being punished other than the situation at the instant the act of breaking the rule takes place, then again, drafting the cars (and similar behaviour) should be punished probably dozens of times every race. It's the context and understanding that no advantage is typically being gained that prevents this from happening. People know that someone chasing back through the cars is a) not trying to gain an advantage over the rest of the field but simply trying to rejoin it and b) are still having to expend effort to do so rather than getting a completely free ride. Exactly the same applies here. I think there's a need for the rule to exist, but I also think there's scope for being a bit more sensible about applying it to situations where it was clear the intent wasn't deliberate collusion to gain an unfair advantage.

So if you feel no advantage is gained, then any rule breaking is fine?
Similarly an unbalanced situation, where riders are treated differently, doesn't make a difference?
You don't think the Jury will have considered all this?

adr82 wrote:

I have been talking about this one very specific incident, not ridiculous generalisations like that. If the puncture had happened 30k earlier it wouldn't have been talked about at all because Porte would have had a much easier job getting back into the bunch and that frantic wheel change wouldn't have been so likely. As it happened, his puncture caused him a large loss of time, and while a rule was technically broken, I believe a jury with a little more imagination could have declined to impose any punishment by considering everything that took place and recognising that no advantage had been gained. As I've said, I think rules against deliberate collusion are necessary, but just like a lot of the other rules they should be enforced with a little thought.

The rules need to be applied equally, which means they are often overly generalised and catch some unfortunate situations like this. But the rules were available before the incident and the team should have known them, and therefore avoided the situation.
You agree a rule has been broken.
I understand the basic penalty for that rule being broken is 200 CHF and 2 minutes.
Therefore they simply apply the rules.
I agree they could have reduced the penalty, but that seems arbitrary, as in they are then not following their rules. I'm sure they considered a reduced penalty, but how do you decide what penalty is appropriate? The only way they cannot be accused of 'plucking a number from the air' is to apply that which is written into the rules.

adr82

taon24 wrote:

So no punishment for breaking rules if you lose time? You have suggested that you don't punish people for breaking rules because...?
You are right he should, unfortuately, have said 'No'
...
So if you feel no advantage is gained, then any rule breaking is fine?
Similarly an unbalanced situation, where riders are treated differently, doesn't make a difference?
You don't think the Jury will have considered all this?

I think you're deliberately choosing not to understand this. For the last time, I am not trying to make some sort of general argument involving total removal of punishment for breaking rules where time losses are involved. I'm simply stating that in my opinion there is a strong case for taking the circumstances of individual incidents into account when deciding on an appropriate level of punishment, and that an incident in which the rider concerned obviously didn't intend to gain any unfair advantage and also lost a lot of time could just maybe be dealt with using some common sense. That the wheel change wasn't seen as unfair is amply demonstrated by the widespread support for what Clarke did and the reaction to the decision of the jury. Nobody wants to see a race potentially decided by mechanicals, but those at least are an unpredictable, unavoidable part of racing. Hitting someone who had already suffered due to a mechanical problem with a huge time penalty for an insignificant attempt to get himself moving again all of a few seconds sooner is just interfering with the race to no real purpose.

taon24 wrote:

The rules need to be applied equally, which means they are often overly generalised and catch some unfortunate situations like this. But the rules were available before the incident and the team should have known them, and therefore avoided the situation.
You agree a rule has been broken.
I understand the basic penalty for that rule being broken is 200 CHF and 2 minutes.
Therefore they simply apply the rules.
I agree they could have reduced the penalty, but that seems arbitrary, as in they are then not following their rules. I'm sure they considered a reduced penalty, but how do you decide what penalty is appropriate? The only way they cannot be accused of 'plucking a number from the air' is to apply that which is written into the rules.

No, they don't "simply apply the rules". That's a massive part of the problem, as everyone knows. They pick and choose. They pick and choose the rules they want to enforce, and they pick and choose the occasions to enforce them. This inconsistency is what annoys many people, myself included. If you're choosing not to enforce a rule most of the time, it is a sign that there's something wrong. If people are able to ignore a rule most of the time, the same applies.

As for choosing penalties, ignoring the fact that the 2 minute number itself was plucked from the air to be written into the rules, the obvious answer is to define a scale of increasing punishment. The UCI have in fact done this with various offences already, including the non-regulation assistance one, but most of the others start with time penalties of 10 or 20 seconds rather than 2 minutes. The smaller amounts would have been far more appropriate in this case because as I think we both agree, they would have more than accounted for any supposed "benefit" from the wheel change (although I still think that's irrelevant). When you consider that Porte could apparently have punched someone and only been penalised 1 minute, it should make you reconsider whether the rule makes sense as written. Rules are important, but they shouldn't be immune to criticism either.

DeVlaeminck

Well we all agree Porte broke a rule. We all agree that by breaking the rule he saved himself some time on GC (even if we disagree how much). It seems reasonable then that the rule is applied in this instance except perhaps because the minimum penalty is unduly harsh in this circumstance - that seems to be the crux of the argument. OK you could perhaps argue it either way but it is at least a reasonable decision by the commissaires to apply the rule in this case.

There are plenty of circumstances where rules are not always applied - if you cycle on the pavement it would be unusual for a policeman to fine you straight off but most people would agree that it's reasonable that such a law exists. Porte gained an advantage by breaking what most people would accept is in many respects a reasonable rule - he is a GC rider in a grand tour - in those circumstances are you really arguing that it is so wrong that the rule is applied ?

ddraver

Sorry DeV but in no way do I think it is reasonable. I think it was clearly the opposite

adr82

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Well we all agree Porte broke a rule. We all agree that by breaking the rule he saved himself some time on GC (even if we disagree how much). It seems reasonable then that the rule is applied in this instance except perhaps because the minimum penalty is unduly harsh in this circumstance - that seems to be the crux of the argument. OK you could perhaps argue it either way but it is at least a reasonable decision by the commissaires to apply the rule in this case.

There are plenty of circumstances where rules are not always applied - if you cycle on the pavement it would be unusual for a policeman to fine you straight off but most people would agree that it's reasonable that such a law exists. Porte gained an advantage by breaking what most people would accept is in many respects a reasonable rule - he is a GC rider in a grand tour - in those circumstances are you really arguing that it is so wrong that the rule is applied ?

OK, last time I'm going to bother repeating what are essentially the same points I've been making for the last two pages of this thread.

I don't agree he saved any time on GC and as such he didn't gain any advantage either. All you have to do is look at his GC position before and after that stage and that at least is absolutely clear. There is some room for debate over how much less time he might have lost by taking the first available wheel rather than waiting for a few more seconds until a teammate gave him one, but given the circumstances (5k from a flat stage finish) he was almost inevitably going to lose a chunk of time as soon as he punctured. Everyone seems to agree that the time saved, if any, was a matter of a few seconds at most. So maybe he finished 47s down instead of 50s down, is that in any way significant with half of a GT remaining? I don't think it is.

In the circumstances surrounding the incident, yes, I do think it was wrong to apply the rule knowing that it carried with it such a large minimum time penalty. I have no problem with a rule existing that is intended to prevent inter-team collusion, but the penalties of 2, 5 and 10 minutes seem rather high when compared to many of the other UCI rules. A 10-20s penalty would have been a lot more appropriate if they felt some punishment was required.

If applying the rules as written produces punishments that are widely seen as excessive and unfair, the sensible response shouldn't be to shrug and say "Rules are rules". They can be changed. I don't understand why the UCI have set up the punishments for this particular rule in the way that they have. By all means allow for severe punishments for the cases where there's outright cheating going on and/or where a real advantage is gained, but I doubt that this incident was what they had in mind when drafting the rule. I think the jury should have had the courage to admit that, and made a decision not to apply it in the absence of a more reasonable option for penalising Porte.

taon24

adr82 wrote:

OK, last time I'm going to bother repeating what are essentially the same points I've been making for the last two pages of this thread.

I don't agree he saved any time on GC and as such he didn't gain any advantage either. All you have to do is look at his GC position before and after that stage and that at least is absolutely clear. There is some room for debate over how much less time he might have lost by taking the first available wheel rather than waiting for a few more seconds until a teammate gave him one, but given the circumstances (5k from a flat stage finish) he was almost inevitably going to lose a chunk of time as soon as he punctured. Everyone seems to agree that the time saved, if any, was a matter of a few seconds at most. So maybe he finished 47s down instead of 50s down, is that in any way significant with half of a GT remaining? I don't think it is.

Repeating the same points over again don't make them more valid.
You seem to agree that in general it is possible to gain an advantage by reducing a loss.
You seem to agree that in this case he (Porte) may have reduced his loss.
I think you agree that the time lost to a puncture is neither an 'unfair' advantage or 'unfair' disadvantage in that no rules were broken or wilful acts committed to cause the puncture.
But you don't agree that Porte gained an advantage by reducing his loss, with no logical explanation given.
You agree that he broke the rules, which were written beforehand, (unknowingly) in taking a wheel from Clarke.
You acknowledge that the time loss is important for every stage in GC riding
But you don't agree that a few seconds is significant in GC riding, but never explain why.
I claim that all that is necessary and sufficient for a penalty is an advantage from rule breaking and that the rule breaking is significant.
You seem to disagree with this, but only seemingly by claiming any punishment is excessive, which means not punishing the incident and Porte potentially gaining a reduced disadvantage from breaking a rule.
You seem to disagree with the Jury making different calls, which to my mind simply shows them examining the merits in each case, however you then want the Jury to make a different call in terms of reducing the 'excessive' punishment.

adr82 wrote:

In the circumstances surrounding the incident, yes, I do think it was wrong to apply the rule knowing that it carried with it such a large minimum time penalty. I have no problem with a rule existing that is intended to prevent inter-team collusion, but the penalties of 2, 5 and 10 minutes seem rather high when compared to many of the other UCI rules. A 10-20s penalty would have been a lot more appropriate if they felt some punishment was required.

If applying the rules as written produces punishments that are widely seen as excessive and unfair, the sensible response shouldn't be to shrug and say "Rules are rules". They can be changed. I don't understand why the UCI have set up the punishments for this particular rule in the way that they have. By all means allow for severe punishments for the cases where there's outright cheating going on and/or where a real advantage is gained, but I doubt that this incident was what they had in mind when drafting the rule. I think the jury should have had the courage to admit that, and made a decision not to apply it in the absence of a more reasonable option for penalising Porte.

They could have waived the rule, but equally he did break the rules, and as a GC rider every second counts and therefore the incident becomes significant.
I agree that the punishment scale should be rewritten for incidents like this to allow more leeway. A time penalty is probably necessary, to prevent any possibility of an advantage (or reduced disadvantage) coming from breaking the rules, but 30 odd seconds would easily more than counteract any time saved.
However rewriting the rules and applying them retrospectively is almost always a bad idea.

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DeVlaeminck

taon24 wrote:

[

They could have waived the rule, but equally he did break the rules, and as a GC rider every second counts and therefore the incident becomes significant.
I agree that the punishment scale should be rewritten for incidents like this to allow more leeway. A time penalty is probably necessary, to prevent any possibility of an advantage (or reduced disadvantage) coming from breaking the rules, but 30 odd seconds would easily more than counteract any time saved.
However rewriting the rules and applying them retrospectively is almost always a bad idea.

A good summing up of the situation.