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Mark Cavendish (Astana-Qazaqstan) has been fined 200CHF (£174) for slipstreaming behind a car during stage six of the Tour de France.
The sprinter, who broke the all-time stage win record in Saint-Vulbas on Wednesday, was shown riding behind a vehicle after he was dropped from the peloton with around 70km remaining on the stage to Dijon.
The race jury decided to sanction Cavendish for “sheltering behind or taking advantage of the slipstream of a vehicle”. Alongside the fine, he was docked 10 points in the points classification, 40 seconds in the general classification, and 15 points in the overall UCI ranking.
Speaking after the stage, Cavendish explained he had had a mechanical problem.
“My chain wrapped and locked in my bottom bracket,” he told the press by his team bus. “I started to panic when [there was] a TV camera. It’s the second time this particular camera has done it. He goes in the middle of the road and stops the convoy coming, and that creates you out the back.
“A television camera is there to capture images, not to influence the race,” he continued. “It’s the second time this particular motorbike has done that, and that’s when you start to panic, because when an outside control is influencing the race, it’s something you can’t prepare for.”
After the incident, Cavendish rode alongside the race officials’ car, before tucking in behind it on his way back to the peloton.
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The Brit went on to place 19th in the final sprint, which also ended in race jury action.
Having initially finished second, Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Jasper Philipsen was relegated for deviation and fined 500CHF (£435). The team’s sports director Christoph Roodhooft told the media afterwards that he received a phone call from the UCI informing him of the decision. “There was no further comment, just a simple message,” he said.
Despite his fine, Cavendish said he had a “really, really special” day in the bunch on Wednesday, after making history as the Tour’s all-time stage win record holder.
“I was very humbled to be in that peloton today, with the amount of people who were genuinely happy,” he said. “I had the old guys saying, ‘You’ve given us hope that we can still do it. Then you’ve got Tom, little Tom Pidcock, who came up and said, ‘I was nine when you won your first stage’.”
The day was affected by crosswinds around its halfway point, which threatened to split apart the peloton. “It was about just staying focused, which for three and a half, four hours, is sometimes more difficult than suffering in the mountain days,” Cavendish said.
The sprinter’s Astana-Qazaqstan teammate Alexey Lutsenko was also fined 200CHF for sheltering behind a vehicle during the stage, while the team’s sports director Dmitriy Fofonov was fined 500CHF for his car’s role in the offence.
The day before, Davide Ballerini received a 200CHF fine for “inappropriate behaviour”, after he stopped with 300m to go to watch his teammate win the stage on a big TV screen.
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