Originally Posted by
Leinster
On Sunday at the ToC, Daniel Oss, former leadout man for Cannondale, gave Peter Sagan, former sprinter for Cannondale, a leadout for the mid-stage time bonus sprint at a time when Sagan's understaffed Tinkoff team were all too exhausted to raise a gallop after chasing every breakaway all day. In the past, Contador has had former teammates pace him up mountains when he's run out of support himself. You see riders on opposite teams working together all the time to form and/or chase down breakaways, and share food and bottles while doing it. Any of these things had/have a much bigger effect on the eventual race result than a friend helping out a friend behind the peloton in the last kms of a flat stage.
And as said before, the UCI and race organisers the world over constantly pick and choose which regulations to uphold and when. This is a weird time to enforce a rule when they let 30 guys jump a railroad crossing at Paris Roubaix.
+1 I have never heard of the rule enforced in the past and a really odd time to enforce it. A rule is a rule unless it is a UCI rule. Subject to enforcement depending the race director to interpretation or disposition that day. An act of pure class and sportsmanship sullied by a dubiously run organization. And what specifically is helping another rider/team anyway? Because everyday the peloton helps each other regardless of team. what breakaway would succeed unless riders from other teams work together. I think this rule was made for situations where riders colluded to win or lose stages for payoffs and this clearly was not the case. This was helping a mate. This penalty sucks and a weak interpretation of the rule in my view.