The UCI’s decision to penalise Richie Porte and Simon Clarke two minutes, punishment for Clarke’s sporting decision to give Porte his front wheel after the Sky leader had punctured, is a disgrace.
The penalty has effectively ended Porte’s chances of winning the Giro.
Yet it is no exaggeration to say that acts like Clarke’s are the embodiment of how Australians are raised to understand sportsmanship. It is part of our national sporting folklore that helping a rival who has suffered bad luck is one of the most noble things you can do on a sporting arena.
Events like John Landy’s 1956 decision to stop to help a fallen Ron Clarke in the Australian mile championships are iconic in our sporting culture. It is literally cast in bronze near the site of Melbourne’s former Olympic Park athletics track, a couple of drop punts from the MCG.
Australian sportsmanship can be problematic: witness the reaction to our cricketers and sledging. Yet acts like Landy’s represent us as we would like to be, more than perhaps we truly are. We are taught from a young age to aspire to respect our rivals and mates.
Many Australians will see Simon Clarke’s act of kindness to his friend as fitting squarely within the best of sportsmanship, as we understand it, having been raised to view these kinds of selfless acts as defining marks of character and sporting goodwill.
Many cycling fans will agree. The Giro d’Italia’s official Twitter account posted photos of the event with the admiring caption, in English, “This is cycling. This is the best sport in the world.”
Hours later the same account was announcing the penalties with a terse press release.
It is yet another baffling decision from cycling’s idiot bureaucracy.
Let’s be clear: low-level cheating is endemic in professional cycling. Watch a race for five minutes and you will see riders hanging onto team cars, being dragged along by a ‘sticky bottle’. You’ll see riders drafting off team cars to get back to the peloton; riders drafting camera motorbikes as they attack; teams routinely offer bottles and food to riders from other teams.
The UCI ignores all of this unless riders blatantly (and you have to be more blatant than Rafal Majka winking at the camera as he drafted a moto in last year’s Tour de France) abuse the rules.
At Paris-Roubaix recently, a big group of riders charged under a closing railway barrier, desperate to save a few seconds by putting their lives at risk. The UCI refused to act on its own rules, bleating about not being able to identify all the riders and mumbling that it wouldn’t be fair to punish only the ones it could identify.
It’s quite clear that the UCI frequently excuses and endorses low-level cheating, bending its own rules.
That’s long before we get to the more ‘serious’ cheating: doping, rumours of motorised bikes, race-fixing, which the UCI has a long and shameful history, perhaps now ending, of ignoring and shovelling under the carpet.
And yet it chooses to throw the rule book at two riders who have done something that the entire sporting world, including the race’s own PR team, agrees demonstrates great sportsmanship and admirable character?
The penalties show that the UCI remains determined in its officious, tone-deaf administration, completely isolated from the values it should be encouraging, from the wishes of its fans, and from the deeper sporting tradition it inhabits.
The decision is a disgrace to the UCI. Long live cycling.
Brando Connor
Guest
Reading that rule it looks like anyone involved in a breakaway that allows a non-teammate to draft should be penalized 2, 5, etc minutes.
DarwinLycra
Guest
All of what you say is certainly true and the tradition of sportsmanship should be upheld. However, all competitors face challenges at various points in their career (whether fair or unfair). I disagree that Porte's chances of winning are over. A lot can happen over the next 10 days and as a professional, I expect him and his team to do everything in their power to turn things around. Richie said it best himself the day after the incident: " No-one should doubt how much I still want to win this race." That's the other side of Aussie athletes and people in general: when you've either been kicked or fallen down, you pick yourself up and have an even harder go at it. Let's see Richie's mettle in the face of serious adversity. My (silly) bold prediction is that he'll take Aru out of maglia rosa contention after the time trial and it will be between him and Contador.
Mike
Guest
There's an interview elsewhere on the web with one of the Italian riders who came close to winning stage 10 after deliberately working with a friend from another team to help each other get into the break. Should they be penalised? Porte gained no " advantage" over his competitors by the wheel change. Fans have now been deprived of the pleasure of seeing three GC contenders battle for the overall on the basis of their abilities. The commissaries have possibly deprived Porte of the extra income he would have earned in coming years as a grand tour winner.
The Prize_Man
Roar Pro
So by that logic if you cant identify all the drug cheats you should punish none. Lets be serious here the UCI CHOSE not to punish those riders. The inconsistency is definitely cause for questioning. However i find it astounding that Richie did not know that rule.
jack
Guest
Why didn't Porte know the rules ? This rule makes sense to me if cycling is a team event based on trade teams rather than nations . It would be a great advantage to come from say Italy rather than say Eritrea if people from other teams can be de facto team mates Why didn't he take a wheel from a Sky team mate ? Maybe he wanted them all to be able to contribute to getting him back to the peleton Mind you we can all agree that we all roll our eyes when the UCI makes a ruling on anything with any relationship to so called fair play .
Minz
Guest
This is cycling. This is the worst sport in the world. Respect to the cyclists, but the administration.....
Joey Johns
Roar Guru
Astute observation there Tim. UCI is starting to make FIFA look consistent...
LachyP
Guest
Advantage is a broad use of the term mate. He lost time because he was unlucky, no fault of his or anyone else. This was just a good deed from a nice bloke looking to reduce anothers misfortune. Not give them some advantage over everyone else. Common sense, common decency and fairness should be taken into account. If fairness is the deciding factor Porte doesn't get punished. End of story.
Joey Johns
Roar Guru
That many cameras and they still cant manage to work out which riders they filmed going through the barrier was which... yeah right
Chris R
Guest
That's sad
Andrew
Guest
The riders went un punishment on the ground that the organizer cannot identify all the riders who cross the train track illegaly. Clearly if ten riders get punish for illegal train crossing when organizer cannot identify the other ten rider who also break that rule than organizer would be treating people unfairly.
Rogo
Guest
Interesting to see mike tomo on twitter reminding of the inconsistentcies by UCI, regarding the railway crossing after the boom gates closed during the Paris roubaix, where no one was penalised
Andrew
Guest
Getting a wheel change with a another member (non team member) of peloton is a sigificant advantage especially when a rider have no surrounding team members near by. If the rider get help legally, the rider may need to around 2.5 minutes to access the team vehicle/ neutral service. The penalty for doing the first time is reasonable. 2 minute penalty is enough to reduce much of that advantage (the first time penalty should hurt the gc rider quite a bit but still give them a chance to win, look at the margin of victory in recent grand tours). Still I think Richie Porte move to get illegal help was reasonable, Richie could easily to lose 3 minutes+ at the end of the stage if there is 10km of racing left. Richie Porte should not even think about getting illegal help for the rest of this grand tour. The penalty for second offence will certainly outweight the cost of waitng to get legal help (5 minutes) for gc person.
Jono
Guest
I didn't realise the UCI didn't do anything to punish those at Roubaix that went through the train signals. That's disgraceful. As for their excuse, might as well not punish drug cheats either since there's a chance you can't identify them all. Pathetic. The horrible thing it will probably require that a rider gets killed at a train crossing for them to take it seriously. As for the Porte incident. It's a tough break. Unfortunate that he didn't get a minor slap on the wrist as Froome did 2 years ago at the tour in the name of keeping the race as competitive as possible. Does that mean Porte will leave the Giro early now? Say after the time trial if he doesn't make significant gains would it be better to get him out and focus on a new goal?
Jono
Guest
They can't. In other articles on this topic it's stated that Sky has no recourse to appeal the decision.
nickoldschool
Roar Guru
Completely understand the angle of your article Tim. Having said that, as a more 'neutral' spectator my first reaction was 'where are Porte's sky team mates?" Although I find it beautiful that 2 cyclists from 2 different teams help each other on a stage, part of me was also feeling slightly uncomfortable with that cause we have always been told that outside the world champs and the Olympics cycling is a team sport, not a national one. If Porte is one day 2min in front of Contador and about to win a grand tour and that a Spaniard helps AC in a similar way, Contador subsequently winning the stage and the tour, would aussies also praise Spanish sportsmanship? I am not sure about that. Dura lex sed lex.
Kate
Guest
Where's the proof that (a) Sky supplied a wheel to Meersman, and not just helped pace him back (which is allowed), and (2) that if he did receive a wheel from Sky that Commissaires saw it?
Tim Renowden
Expert
Gianni Meersmann (EQS) on May 12th: "I crashed in the final downhill because of a puncture. Had to wait for 10min to get another front wheel. Thx @TeamSky for the help #fairplay" https://twitter.com/GianniMeersman/status/597829780256460800
spruce moose
Guest
I can remember when Tana Umaga in an AB v Wales game actually stopped playing to check on the health of a Welsh footballer who got knocked out in a tackle. The AB's were on the offensive and he stopped, rolled the Welsh player in the recovery position and took out his mouthguard while the game continued on downfield. He was awarded the Pierre De Coubertin award for sportsmanship. It's dreadfully sad that the UCI instead choose to penalise instead of praise like the above example. What the UCI have done would be like a referee awarding a penalty try to Wales.
spruce moose
Guest
The real question is if it was Alberto Contador instead of Richie Porte, would he have been slapped with a penalty? Contador flies under the radar of punishment.