Ah. A boundary case. Tough question. I assume the two GC riders would be both be wrestling to stay up there with the sprinters in the end then, because even a split in the finishing field could separate them.

Better to try to understand the middle of the bell curve with all its norms and traditions before you venture into the extremes that are challenging for even those who understand rules and their interpretations.

Yes. And yes. But yes.

I don't think he said you were imputing or imbueing or projecting or whatever. The feeling and honor drives things, whether you said it or not. No one wants that non-sporting bad thing to happen, and if such bad things happen, they may take extraordinary actions to avoid it changing the result. Or not.

e.g. this race, G flatted while on the Champs when the race was in full flight. No one was slowing down. Had he not caught back on with his team help (and team car's? !! yes, not "legal" per se), he would have lost a step on the podium.

In early Tour, the "no help" rule DQd a rider who stopped to repair his frame at a smith's shop and he got the "help" of the smithy kid working the bellows for him.

All manner of confounding and interacting and competing rules and truths and prizes that make the systemic interactions of the event the hornet's nest of intrigue that it is, even without positing acts of God wrapped in 1 sec gaps cloaked in enigmas. Bon apetit.