TDF 2020 - Stage 3: Nice - Sisteron 198 km *Spoilers*

Pross

johnboy183 said:

Was just raising it. Imagine if he had clipped Sagans wheel, could’ve been carnage. I’m just not sure that SB deserved some of the grief he seems to be getting. Didn’t look any worse than many other finishes.

It would have been Sagan's fault he was drifting back and over to the barriers.

RichN95.

In football you never see a penalty given where a legitimately fouled player stays on his feet. This is why players hit the deck when they're fouled.

And so it is with cycling. If an offending sprinter doesn't disadvantage anyone, a foul will probably not be called

No_Ta_Doctor

RichN95. said:

In football you never see a penalty given where a legitimately fouled player stays on his feet. This is why players hit the deck when they're fouled.

And so it is with cycling. If an offending sprinter doesn't disadvantage anyone, a foul will probably not be called

Even then, It's largely up to the teams to lodge a protest if they've been disadvantaged, isn't it? And they generally don't do that unless it's blatant. Commissaires only seem to step in and make a judgement if there's a crash because of it or if there's pushing etc.

TheBigBean

RichN95. said:

In football you never see a penalty given where a legitimately fouled player stays on his feet. This is why players hit the deck when they're fouled.

And so it is with cycling. If an offending sprinter doesn't disadvantage anyone, a foul will probably not be called

In football players are sent off for "potential leg breakers" even if the player is uninjured. That would be a better analogy.

Interestingly, when someone's leg is broken, there is usually a defence mounted that the tackle wasn't that bad and it would only have been a yellow without the leg break.

rick_chasey

I'm mainly making a point that no-one cares about anymore, which is that, taking the front and then going diagonally towards the line so it's even further for the guy coming up to go around is a move that gets done a lot.

Very occasionally, that results in a crash, at which point everyone points aggressively at the person doing the move.

Usually, nothing happens, like in this instance, but occasionally it's close enough that riders get argy bargy.

I still remember breaking down the Cav/Haussler crash and it was bananas on here with everyone trying to work out who had deviated from the 'line'.

Same with the Groenewegen crash - suddenly his diagonal move (which, let's be clear, he has done quite a lot, fair or not) was worthy of a lifetime ban and whatever - in that instance because the rider behind didn't give up and then the organisers put out fencing that seemed to make it a million times worse.

In reality, he's doing what sprinters (and specifically he) always do - so either you accept that's a fact of sprinting (fine) or punish all diagonal sprinting.

I guarantee in that split second Bennett felt him slowing up, looked through his legs and veered to the left. It didn't matter, there was plenty of room and Ewen (ugh) was a lot faster.

If you only punish the crashes, you're not gonna prevent the crashes, as no-one wants them to begin with anyway.

tailwindhome

RichN95. said:

In football you never see a penalty given where a legitimately fouled player stays on his feet. This is why players hit the deck when they're fouled.

And so it is with cycling. If an offending sprinter doesn't disadvantage anyone, a foul will probably not be called

Less diving in cycling though

Pross

rick_chasey said:

I'm mainly making a point that no-one cares about anymore, which is that, taking the front and then going diagonally towards the line so it's even further for the guy coming up to go around is a move that gets done a lot.

Very occasionally, that results in a crash, at which point everyone points aggressively at the person doing the move.

Usually, nothing happens, like in this instance, but occasionally it's close enough that riders get argy bargy.

I still remember breaking down the Cav/Haussler crash and it was bananas on here with everyone trying to work out who had deviated from the 'line'.

Same with the Groenewegen crash - suddenly his diagonal move (which, let's be clear, he has done quite a lot, fair or not) was worthy of a lifetime ban and whatever - in that instance because the rider behind didn't give up and then the organisers put out fencing that seemed to make it a million times worse.

In reality, he's doing what sprinters (and specifically he) always do - so either you accept that's a fact of sprinting (fine) or punish all diagonal sprinting.

I guarantee in that split second Bennett felt him slowing up, looked through his legs and veered to the left. It didn't matter, there was plenty of room and Ewen (ugh) was a lot faster.

If you only punish the crashes, you're not gonna prevent the crashes, as no-one wants them to begin with anyway.

The point that I, and I think others, are trying to make is that varying your line in a sprint is not always equal. If you do it when you and another rider are well clear of the bunch and in the middle of the road to make it longer for the other rider to come around and impeded him then you should (and probably would) get relegated. Bennett's move was like that but he got beaten anyway so no action was needed. If you do it in the middle of a tightly packed bunch and completely close the gap forcing a rider into the barriers it is worse and deserves a DQ. I'm not one who was suggesting a life ban for Groenewegen and agree that would be over the top but I do think his sprint in Poland was at the high end of the second example. He knew what he was doing, appeared to stick an elbow into the rider passing him and as a result there was a crash causing potentially life changing injuries and the end of a career. I'm not suggesting he deliberately caused a crash but he would have known that in the situation there was a high risk of doing so. People have said you shouldn't judge it by the outcome which I agree with but I think it's reasonable to categorise punishment by the likelihood of your action causing a bad outcome. The race officials should have the knowledge and experience to determine what is what. Groenewegen's own team even seem to have accepted what he did was at the high end of the offence.