Richie Porte (Sky) has been penalised two minutes in the Giro d’Italia today by the race jury after he received an illegal wheel change from Orica-GreenEdge’s Simon Clarke following a puncture.
The Tasmanian punctured with seven kilometres remaining of stage 10 from Civitanova Marche to Forlì. Despite a hard chase, he lost 47 seconds to his rivals in the bunch. However, worse was to come as commissaires later issued a statement confirming that Porte had been docked two minutes.
UCI rule 12.1.040 prohibits “non-regulation assistance to a rider from another team” with a two-minute penalty and a fine of 200 Swiss Francs for a first offence.
Porte had started the day just 22 seconds behind race leader, Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo). However, he has now dropped to 12th on GC, 3’09 behind the Spaniard.
“Clearly there was little to be done, rules are rules, and I think rules have to be respected for the credibility of this sport and, in this case, the credibility of the Giro d’Italia,” race director Mauro Vegni told reporters afterwards. These are race matters and they are judged by the commissaires and their decision is final.”
Well if that’s the rule it’s a ridiculous rule, but I haven’t seen the incident why is the Sky Rider to the right of the pic not giving him his wheel ?
A question by @Irish_Cycling on twitter: If @SimoClarke gave his wheel to a bystander & then the bystander gave the wheel to @richie_porte would that be ok ?
Ridiculous, you think Simon Clarke gave Richie Porte a bag of syringes!!! Both of them should’ve been given a beer and told “fair play boys!”
If someone offers him a wheel its ridiculous to penalise. I assume its claimed to be on safety grounds as teams regularly share bottles, food etc
Was Clarke also penalised ? Did Aru not ask Contador to ride together in a previous stage to insure Uran was all but out of the equation! Is this not “non-regulation assistance to a rider from another team” ?? Hmmm I wonder … They want Aru to win simple as that… Port now out of the mix so they just have to sabotage Contador now … Watch this space …. Coincidently all the Italians are having a fantastic giro ! Well prepared I guess 😉
Good points Damian.
Give Astana a license and penalize Richie for getting a wheel? Good call UCI
Great gesture from a fellow countrymen but I have never seen another rider from a different team give a wheel to a GC contender especially when he had a teammate there clearly he wanted to leave Porte with as many teammates there to pace him back into the race which again seems mad coz that’s the job of the team to protect & if needs be hand over there bike to leader … Still a harsh ruling by UCI