Team Katusha has decided to take it’s own rider Alexey Tsatevich out of the Giro d’Italia after yesterday’s incident at the individual time trial around Chianti.
On yesterday’s stage, Tsatevich seriously violated the rules of riding an individual time trial by drafting on the wheel of another rider for a considerable length of time.
The UCI race commissaires decided to penalise Tsatevich, according to UCI Article 12.1.040/40.1 (Failure to respect regulation distances and gaps between riders [slip-streaming]) with 100 CHF fine and 6 minutes 48 seconds penalty in the stage classification.
Team Katusha however judged that this measure was not enough for such poor and unacceptable behaviour and pulled the rider out of the race.
“First of all, on behalf of Team Katusha, I would like to apologize for Alexey Tsatevich’s behaviour during the time trial,” said Katusha’s Directeur Sportif Dmitry Konyshev.
“The way Tsatevich rode yesterday’s stage was absolutely unacceptable. First of all, he broke the clear rule, known by every professional rider.”
“In addition, he also showed a great lack of respect for his rival, the rider who caught him on the course. Moreover, he absolutely ignored the team plan for the day, provided and requested by the sports director.”
“His behaviour has a huge and negative impact on the image of cycling in general and Team KATUSHA in particular. Accepting the commissaires penalty was not enough for us; we had to take more severe measures.”
“It is not easy to enter the second week of the race with just 8 riders, but I am convinced we’ve made the right decision.”
… watching the race I was wondering why his manager did not mention to him that it was not allowed …
but he is the only one … how is it possible that two or even three riders were crossing the line at the same time …
Handy excuse to take your sprinter out of the race just before the mountain stages, if you ask me. Kittel didn’t even have an excuse.