Road Bike Racing - Podium Etiquette?

As I watched the podium presentations
something struck both the wife and I and
I'm not sure about it.
During the prologue it was stated that ONCE would
not wear their yellow/black kit out of respect for
the maillot jaune.
Through out the race (with exception of TTT) they
wore pink/black.
On the podium Beloki wore Yellow.
Is it a slam to Lance and Maillot Jaune?
I thought it rather disrespectful.

any thoughts?
(Xavier, I'd be particularly interested in your
thought on this).

Marty

yeah, that is kinda weird...

when Alex Zulle finished 2nd in 1995, he was also on ONCE...yet on the podium he was still in his pink jersey.

i could understand in the team time trial because maybe they had more "worn in" skin suits in their normal yellow color.

all in all though i don't think they were dissing lance's yellow. afterall, they presented NO challenge whatsoever, and its not like they barely lost out on it due to misfortune or bad racing tactics, they just weren't as strong. so i doubt they were doing it just to downplay the real yellow.

maybe beloki's jersey from the day was too sweaty and for the clean podium presentation they only had some washed yellow ones? hahahaha

I don't think it would have been as a mark of disrespect - whenever interviewed Beloki was always very respectful of Armstrong - see his comments about how coming second to Armstrong wasn't anything to be ashamed of, and his 'going to the moon and being beaten by an astronaut' speech. Perhaps they just wanted to wear normal team colours for sponsors? Or perhaps it was something to do with being the winning team?
Nobody seemed to be visibly annoyed by it.

Richard

Never thought a thing of it until I read your post. Didn't bother me at all when I watched it.

What irritated me was that OLN did an absolutely fine job covering the entire event and then (as usual) the big network did a shallow job of covering the final day.

Carl

Carl, I should have posted this last night, OLN had there standard coverage yesterday. However, i dont think they showed the race until late, 11:00pm - 1:00am.

Didn't they wear pink last year, too?

It's just a guess... it may have been their choice, and it may have been dictated to them, but regardless, on the road they wouldn't want their team members to be confused with the maillot jaune (by media or glycogen depleted cyclists).