Dylan Groenewegen Suspended until May 2021

blazing_saddles

Or so I have just heard.

Nothing in English yet, so:

https://www.wielerflits.nl/nieuws/dylan-groenewegen-geschorst-tot-begin-mei-2021/

The international cycling union UCI will announce the suspension of Dylan Groenewegen at the end of this week. Last week, an independent arbitration committee determined the penalty. WielerFlits has now understood that Groenewegen will be suspended for nine months. This means that he is not allowed to take action until May 6, 2021.

With this scenario, Groenewegen could in principle still start in the Giro d'Italia, which starts on May 8. The Amsterdammer will still have the opportunity to appeal this sentence. This way he can go to the sports tribunal CAS in Lausanne. This is an extremely severe penalty for an incident in a sprint. This seems to set a precedent for sprinters' misbehavior.

neonriver

Way too harsh

gweeds

Does he ever come back from this? Mentally it's going to be huge.

RichN95.

neonriver said:

Way too harsh

Agreed. The UCI trying to load all the blame onto him and not their dangerous finish with dodgy barriers.

salsiccia1

RichN95. said:

neonriver said:

Way too harsh

Agreed. The UCI trying to load all the blame onto him and not their dangerous finish with dodgy barriers.

Careful now. Someone will be along to tell you that it's Jakobsen's fault for not bunny-hopping the barriers.

Pross

It needed sanction but that is ridiculous. Even the amount he has already missed feels excessive. Fair enough if the UCI want to put down a marker but now they have to be consistent if anyone else does the same move even if the outcome isn't as serious.

johnboy183

Alex Dowsett raised a point in his latest vlog about Sagan. In whichever finish it was (11?) at the Giro, Sagan.
veered from one line to another, moving a good 3 metres laterally yet wasn’t penalised. He wondered if it was only dangerous if someone came down as a result of the movement or should it perhaps all be treated the same? It looked far worse, (albeit I only saw the DG incident very briefly) than this crash and his move that put Cav out of action in the Tour. Always diff to judge I reckon.
Erhaps need the riders, teams involved in the actual race to make a decision?

gsk82

That's punishing the outcome, not the action. Terrible decision, made purely to appease social media types

RichN95.

gsk82 said:

That's punishing the outcome, not the action. Terrible decision, made purely to appease social media types

It's to divert attention from the UCI's terrible recent safety record. Remember when Evenepoel went off the bridge and they launched an investigation into Evenepoel.

thejimmymethod

johnboy183 said:

Alex Dowsett raised a point in his latest vlog about Sagan. In whichever finish it was (11?) at the Giro, Sagan.
veered from one line to another, moving a good 3 metres laterally yet wasn’t penalised. He wondered if it was only dangerous if someone came down as a result of the movement or should it perhaps all be treated the same? It looked far worse, (albeit I only saw the DG incident very briefly) than this crash and his move that put Cav out of action in the Tour. Always diff to judge I reckon.
Erhaps need the riders, teams involved in the actual race to make a decision?

As always seems to be the case, consequences get punished rather than actions

gsk82

RichN95. said:

gsk82 said:

That's punishing the outcome, not the action. Terrible decision, made purely to appease social media types

It's to divert attention from the UCI's terrible recent safety record. Remember when Evenepoel went off the bridge and they launched an investigation into Evenepoel.

To appease social media types

takethehighroad

This is such a shocking decision. As has been mentioned, we will be able to find several examples which are just as bad, if not worse, just without the terrible consequences of this incident.

davieb78

https://twitter.com/AvVleuten/status/1323689516054491136?s=20

rick_chasey

Ugh the guy’s already missed this season. I don’t think Jakobson was pushing for it too?

Dorset_Boy

Poor decision, agreed. He should be allowed to race from the end of this season not have to wait until May.

blazing_saddles

Reading around, the decision has been pretty much universally condemned.

DeVlaeminck

Out of interest what do people think would have been appropriate ?
a) relegated
b) DQ from race
c) Ban of 1-4 weeks
d) 9 months
e) 2 years

And should subsequent offences attract harsher penalties as doping can?

I'm torn between b and c and undecided.

shirley_basso

So social media types can overthrow the decision that social media types demanded?

RichN95.

DeVlaeminck said:

Out of interest what do people think would have been appropriate ?
a) relegated
b) DQ from race
c) Ban of 1-4 weeks
d) 9 months
e) 2 years

And should subsequent offences attract harsher penalties as doping can?

I'm torn between b and c and undecided.

C) plus a little interest. Up to two months

Pross

RichN95. said:

DeVlaeminck said:

Out of interest what do people think would have been appropriate ?
a) relegated
b) DQ from race
c) Ban of 1-4 weeks
d) 9 months
e) 2 years

And should subsequent offences attract harsher penalties as doping can?

I'm torn between b and c and undecided.

C) plus a little interest. Up to two months

Yeah top end of c) I think - something along the rugby sanction process would be good where you have a starting point then mitigation or aggregating factors than decrease or increase the sanction.

I don't think the outcome should be taken into account but the potential to do harm should be e.g. a equally severe change of line is a small group, uphill sprint would have a lower sanction than a full bunch, downhill sprint like we had here. The aggravating factor for me in this particular case was that he appeared to check his shoulder, see someone coming up fast inside him and closed the door. It felt deliberate, not to cause a crash and injure another rider but certainly to disrupt someone who was going faster.

bobmcstuff

shirley_basso said:

So social media types can overthrow the decision that social media types demanded?

Not everyone on social media holds the same opinion...

kingstongraham

shirley_basso said:

So social media types can overthrow the decision that social media types demanded?

This is social media - did you demand it?

shirley_basso

Well reading above the comments it says the UCI likely caved to social media pressure.

Now it's widely condemned.

Lanterne_Rogue

DeVlaeminck said:

Out of interest what do people think would have been appropriate ?
a) relegated
b) DQ from race
c) Ban of 1-4 weeks
d) 9 months
e) 2 years

And should subsequent offences attract harsher penalties as doping can?

I'm torn between b and c and undecided.

f) a system where the tariffs and the criteria to be applied are set in advance and open for all to see, rather than pulled out of the censored when something finally needs to be seen to be done. Obviously this is cycling and it wouldn't happen, but...

Fwiw I'm not necessarily of the opinion that it's too harsh, but I do think there needs to be consistency and openness in the decision making. At the moment most riders would (rightly?) assume they're unlikely to cop the same penalty, so the deterrent effect isn't particularly large despite its magnitude.

focuszing723

I think it's a good decision. He tried to use his bike and his elbow to put his opposition into the barrier. Set a tough example or this will keep happening, it will save riders having to take a couple of months off to recover from their injuries.

rick_chasey

focuszing723 said:

I think it's a good decision. He tried to use his bike and his elbow to put his opposition into the barrier. Set a tough example or this will keep happening, it will save riders having to take a couple of months off to recover from their injuries.

Do we need to do this again?

gsk82

shirley_basso said:

Well reading above the comments it says the UCI likely caved to social media pressure.

Now it's widely condemned.

Social media condemns everything

focuszing723

rick_chasey said:

focuszing723 said:

I think it's a good decision. He tried to use his bike and his elbow to put his opposition into the barrier. Set a tough example or this will keep happening, it will save riders having to take a couple of months off to recover from their injuries.

Do we need to do this again?

Hopefully not if an example is set.

rick_chasey

focuszing723 said:

rick_chasey said:

focuszing723 said:

I think it's a good decision. He tried to use his bike and his elbow to put his opposition into the barrier. Set a tough example or this will keep happening, it will save riders having to take a couple of months off to recover from their injuries.

Do we need to do this again?

Hopefully not if an example is set.

So what Dylan did minus the consequences has happened *multiple* times since

focuszing723

rick_chasey said:

focuszing723 said:

rick_chasey said:

focuszing723 said:

I think it's a good decision. He tried to use his bike and his elbow to put his opposition into the barrier. Set a tough example or this will keep happening, it will save riders having to take a couple of months off to recover from their injuries.

Do we need to do this again?

Hopefully not if an example is set.

So what Dylan did minus the consequences has happened *multiple* times since

I'm not looking for an argument, that's my opinion. Set an example, see if it makes a difference to an idiots mentality of trying to put a fellow cyclist into a barrier and possibly hospital too!

If they can't lead by example, make them the example.

rick_chasey

You’re not following the argument.