Benoît Jarrier of the Fortuneo – Vital Concept team will meet with the police in Valenciennes to answer questions in relation to the illegal crossing of a railway line at last year’s Paris – Roubaix.
Emmanuel Hubert, general manager of the team was informed by the police in the last few weeks about their interest in questioning the rider.
Approximately fifty riders crossed over a railway line after the level crossing barriers had come down at Pont Gibus near Wallers.
A complaint was made by the French railway company SNCF following the incident and the organisers ASO now insist that riders must stop at the sound and light signals and wait until the barriers are up again to ride through. If they do not, they will be put out of the race.
Benoît Jarrier was one of the riders identified as part of the group. The rider from Sarthe is due to take part in the GP Denain next Thursday but the police will speak to him the day before the race.
“The police will come looking for me at the train station,” he told Ouest France. “I will tell them of course how it was dangerous to cross this crossing, I did something stupid like fifty other riders.”
Arnaud Démare (FDJ), was also among the riders identified at the time (due to his French champion’s jersey). FDJ has been contacted by the police but no interview date has been set yet. Only the last riders who crossed the level crossing may be heard and they could risk a fine.
bit late. Year later. Surely they could ask the transit company to delay there train by 10 mins ?
I think they said the reason they couldnt do that was that it’d have a knock on effect for the rest of the network. It is very difficult to forecast how fast the race is going to be, they didnt expect it to be so fast.
I’ve heard this years is to start earlier.
Are they short of real crime to attend to?
WHAT? Really! Where was the organisation?