Bahrain-Merida threaten legal action over Nibali crash

davidof

Bahrain-Merida have threatened to sue ASO who run the Tour de France. The manager, Brent Copeland, said the team had “suffered huge damage” and that lawyers were considering legal action.

“The fans invaded the road and the gendarmerie didn’t do what they should,” he said. “They also didn’t do anything about the people lighting flares. It’s not easy to control more than 600,000 fans as there were the other day but as they’re so powerful and so well organised, some things have to be managed firmly.”

Copeland also warned his riders to avoid riding behind Froome after the Sky leader was pushed and had liquid thrown at him. “Froome’s facing the risk of something happening every day. Chris told me that himself when we spoke recently.” Prior to the race start ASO director Christian Prudhomme had stirred up anger among French fans by threatening to ban Froome.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/ ... ome-thomas

above_the_cows

The thing is ASO don't actually care about the riders, they care about the money they make from creating a spectacle. Stirring the pot, facilitating and encouraging a bit of drama, it's all part of their MO.

blazing_saddles

I hope they do. Nothing will change if they don't.
All the ASO is worried about is looking after the French teams and their bottom line.
They fanned the Foome flames to that end, so it would be rather good if they got a burned.

cougie

Same thing happened to Armstrong with the bag handle. Policing wasn't good this year but not sure if it caused the crash. If he'd crashed due to the flare smoke he might have more of a case.

rick_chasey

cougie wrote:

Same thing happened to Armstrong with the bag handle. Policing wasn't good this year but not sure if it caused the crash. If he'd crashed due to the flare smoke he might have more of a case.

It wasn't really the same with Armstrong, given he had the entire road to use and he himself admitted to the tactic to riding really close to the spectators in order to deter riders riding right in his wheel.

StillGoing

Good. If the TdF carries on like this, it will surely fall behind the Giro and Vuelta in popularity with teams, riders and spectators. I'd laugh like hell if the teams got together and refused to ride into Paris on the final day.

RichN95.

Rick Chasey wrote:

cougie wrote:

Same thing happened to Armstrong with the bag handle. Policing wasn't good this year but not sure if it caused the crash. If he'd crashed due to the flare smoke he might have more of a case.

It wasn't really the same with Armstrong, given he had the entire road to use and he himself admitted to the tactic to riding really close to the spectators in order to deter riders riding right in his wheel.

Quite. Armstrong had plenty of road to deal with. As it should be.