
With about 35 kilometers left in yesterday’s stage four, Valverde and a
handful of his Movistar teammates were caught up in a crash while rolling
through a flat section marked by crosswinds. Froome’s team Sky immediately
picked up the pace, made it extremely difficult for Valverde to return to the
peloton and dropped him back to ninth place at the finish, 36 seconds back. I
understand the desire to put pressure on opponents who are tiring and attacking
to gain some time – that’s what bicycle racing is all about. However, this
simply was not the case, taking advantage of the race leader when he just had
some bad luck. The British Eurosport
commentators took the stance that it was part of the “racing action”, but they
seem to have become cheerleaders lately for the Sky team, which is dominated by
U.K. riders, so I won’t put a lot of weight behind their opinions.

In the modern world of sport, where “if you’re not cheating, you’re not
trying” has become the norm, it always seemed cycling at least clung to this
one important act of sportsmanship. Unfortunately it seems this law of the peloton
has gone out the window, and I’ll be the first to admit that the Movistar team may
only have themselves to blame. At this year’s Paris-Nice, Levi Leipheimer
crashed while chasing on a decent and Movistar turned up the pace, effectively knocking
him out of the race and putting Valverde on the podium. During stage three of
the Tour of Switzerland, most of the Movistar team was separated from the
trailing peloton at a lowered railroad crossing gate and continued to push on. Some
heated arguments began at the front, and eventually the race director stepped
in to hold up the leaders.
Teams will often brush off these incidents, claiming that they “Didn’t
realize what was going on” or “Weren’t aware so-and-so crashed”, but in these
days of race radio and TV coverage everywhere, that is just a ridiculous excuse!
I hate the idea of a mechanical flaw or careless accident determining the
winner of important races, but with the amount of money and prestige now involved
in major cycling events, perhaps the unwritten code has been permanently
broken.

Media discussion has raged on about circumstances during races and fair
play among cyclists in their pursuit of victory. Unfortunately much that I’ve
seen written involves “taking revenge” or “getting even in the next race”. What
is this, the World Wrestling Federation? Next thing you know it, we’ll have fiery
team directors posturing in front of the camera, talking about how their team
is going to wipe the tarmac with their rivals!
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