- Professional road racing.
It's never too far away from a bit of controversy, is it?
- No, in fact, here are the 13 most controversial moments
of the 2019 season.
- Controversial number, 13, isn't it?
(dramatic music)
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And we are going to start with the Tour de France,
which is, of course, the biggest race of them all.
A pressure cooker, really, for all involved,
and sometimes it can boil over a bit.
- [Simon] It can, which is exactly the case for Tony Martin
and Luke Rowe, who came to blows on stage 17
over an argument that appeared
to just be about positioning in the bunch.
- They did.
They had to apologize to each other
before they even crossed the finish line that day.
And subsequently got together to issue an apology
to the public, the fans, the organization
and their own teammates, but it was too late.
They've already been thrown off the race
and handed a 1000 Swiss Franc fine each.
- And with that, we should add to the control sedan.
Should they have been disqualified?
- Of course, bad example to kids.
- No, absolutely not, definitely, not.
Next up, is this incident from the Crow race,
in which a race official was so keen
to guess a stage with a Ed Ward gross suit after the finish,
they he took out three other riders in the process.
- [Daniel] What was he thinking?
And thankfully two of those riders
were able to continue the race.
But unfortunately for Bar and Rita's matte mahorage,
not only did he have to put out of the race,
he had to end his season.
- Even worse though, them taken out by a race official,
must be taken out by your own team.
And that is almost exactly what happened
on stage five over off Vuelta to angle Medrezzo.
- It did and plucky Spaniard was part of three man breakaway
who held a healthy advantage
over the main person coming to the final climb of the day.
at which point his bogus BH team card tried to give a bottle
to his teammate, Yetzibo.
And in doing so, nudged the back wheel of Medrezzo,
throwing him off balance to Jose Jurado,
who in turn almost hit the rocks on the side of the road.
- Now thankfully, everyone did stay upright.
And almost unbelievably, Medrezzo goes onto win the stage
and that's despite being in the break away
for every road stage of the race up until that point.
What a legend.
- Meanwhile, back at the Giro d'Italia in May,
Miguel Angel Lopez wasn't quite so lucky.
On the final climb of the entire race on stage 20,
he was taken out by an over-enthusiastic fan.
He was, and as you might imagine, he was not best pleased.
In fact, he was so angry
he managed to land some pretty accurate slaps
onto the by now very embarrassed fan
and actually finished off, by adding insult to injury,
by flipping his hat off.
- Wasn't the best adversarial thing, was it,
however you look at it,
but somehow Lopez managed to get away
without any kind of sanction from the UCI.
- Would you sanction him?
- I would.
- Would you?
No, I wouldn't have sanctioned him.
What about Neil Zackov?
I bet he wishes that he got away without a sanction.
Crossing the line in a glorious first place arrogance
become the new under 23 world road race champion
only to be disqualified soon after.
- Hmm, turned out that he crashed early on in the race,
dislocating his shoulder,
which he put back in himself, but after that
he sheltered behind his team cover over two minutes
to make his way back to the Pendleton.
And after seeing footage of that,
the UCI decided to disqualify him.
- Yes, now that was a controversial decision
for many reasons.
It was met by a lot of scorn from the professional Pendleton
and actually we hear Zackov is actually taking the UCI
to the court for arbitration in sport
to complain about that decision.
Dan, would you have sanctioned him?
- No.
- No, I would not either.
I mean, he popped his own shoulder back in
and then got back in the bunch.
What a legend.
- We'll got back to the Giro d'Italia now,
because on the very same stage
where Lopez had his fisty cuff incident,
Primroz Roglic received a rather lengthy push from a fan
from the side of the road on the penultimate climb.
- He did, unlike Lopez decking a spectator,
the UCI did deem this one to be unacceptable,
and therefore landed Roglic with a sanction.
A ten-second time penalty on the general classification.
Would you have sanctioned him, Dan?
- No.
- No, I wouldn't have sanctioned him, either.
- And the Giro was just
full of these controversial moments, wasn't it?
This is Victor Campenaerts receiving a bike change
on the stage 11 individual time trial
after a mechanical problem.
- Yeah, not just the bike change Dan,
a really, really, really bad bike change.
One, in fact, probably cost him this stage.
He did go on finish second, but just 11 seconds
behind the winner: Primroz Roglic.
- [Daniel] And yet more from the Giro d'Italia.
Remember on stage 15 when race favorite, Primoz Roglic,
needed a new bike after mechanical
and had to wait for like ever?
- I do, he had to wait for a really, really long time
for his sports director to turn up.
But it turns out there was a good reason.
For this, yeah.
His sports director had stopped for a wee.
- Fair enough, when you got to go, you got to go.
- Well, yeah.
- Right, who remembers this incident all the way back in
early March at the first couple classic race of the season?
Only the news bad, in the men's race
the break had gone very early and the main person
decided to sit up and take it easy for a while.
However, the women's event had started
the same course not long afterwards.
And Nicole Hansmon, the lone leader of the race was flying.
- Yeah, you can say that again.
She very quickly caught the men's race convoy
and so the UCI had to intervene.
They decided to stop the women's race.
Also, getting stopped for entirely different reasons
was Mark Soler at stage nine of the Vuelta a Espana.
He was in what looks to be stage winning position
on the way to Andora, but was then asked to wait
by his own team.
- The reason for that was his team leader, Nara Quintana,
was on the attack behind,
looking for all the help he could get.
So Soler, duly, but slightly reluctantly did wait
for his teammate
and did everything he could to help him.
- And to be fair, it did work.
While Quintana could only manage second on the stage,
he did then go into the race lead.
- [Daniel] And there was yet more controversies
surrounding Murristar a little later
in that same race on stage 19,
where they decided to attack into some crosswinds,
just after Primroz Roglic, the team leader, had crashed.
- And they really, really went for it, didn't they?
And for quite some time, leaving Roglic and his team
in something of a panic.
Eventually though, Alejandro Valverde did decide
that perhaps it wasn't thee best thing to do
and proceeded to look slightly sheepish,
as all the rise who been dropped got back on
and told them what they thought.
- We should had back to the Tour de France now
which is building up to be the most enthralling
and exciting additions in decades.
It just got better
and better and better and better, didn't it?
All the way though stage 19.
- Yeah, how good was it?
Alaphillipe still in yellow,
but starting to struggle.
Any of his team dynamics finally poised
but with egg out bone out throwing everything at the race
over the highest point of the whole tour.
- Yeah, the Coldaliz are out.
Everything was still to play for it
at the top now, wasn't it?
Could Alaphillipe get back on descent?
We'd never find out because the race was stopped.
- Yes, it was, with very reason though.
As it turns out, slightly controversially,
but effectively, a torrential storm
had caused pretty significant land slide, leaving organizers
no choice, but to actually cancel the stage.
And actually ended up taking up the times
from the top of that colderiserac.
- And finally, over at the Tour of California in May,
stage four was won by Fabio Jacobson.
Whilst race leader, Tejay van Garderen,
crossed the finish line 54 seconds down.
- However, he was ultimately given the same fishing time
as Jacobson, because he had a mechanical problem.
However, the mechanical problem had happened quite some way
outside that three kilometers to go safety buffer zone.
- Yeah, the controversy behind this one lasted a long time.
What it's November now, actually.
Courtesy of us making it on this gees and controversy video.
Thankfully though, the UCI didn't have a bearing
on the outcome pf the race, which was won by Tali Pegatchia.
- That's right.
Would you have given van Garderen the same time?
- No.
- No, I don't think I would either.
I don't understand it.
- Rules are rules.
- Yeah, there we go.
Anyway, those are our top 13
most controversial moments of the 2019 season.
We could have gone on, couldn't we?
We could've added Vivianis disqualification at the Giro,
Rep con Jennings disqualification
from the British e-racing championships, for cheating,
we could have had the break going the wrong way
at the Giro racer,
or in fact, the grand Piamonte.
The list goes on.
Isn't that why bike racing is so great?
- There were so many to choose from.
If we missed any of our even extra list
that Sai has just given you, please let us know
in the comment section just down below.
- That's right, and also let us know whether
you think that sanctions are correct or not, as well.
- Right, if you enjoyed this video,
please give us the thumbs up by clicking
on the icon just down below.
And if you can't get enough controversy,
we got ourselves in the sport, rather recently, didn't we?
By describing mountain bikes as boring
in a video you can find just down here.
- Kicked the proverbial hornet's nest, and we may.