Fines and time penalties Giro d'Italia 2024 | UCI imposes harsh penalties on Laporte and Van Lerberghe
Fines and time penalties Giro d’Italia 2024 | UCI imposes harsh penalties on Laporte and Van Lerberghe
Disposing of waste, prohibited positions on the bike, sticky bottles, or a shoulder push leading up to a bunch sprint – anything can happen during a race, especially in the Giro d’Italia, which consists of 21 stages. In this overview, IDLProCycling.com keeps track of the various violations and their corresponding penalties for you!
A rider can receive a penalty from the jury for various reasons. One common reason is discarding food and bottles. Special zones are designated on the course for this purpose. If a rider still discards waste outside of these zones, they (or the responsible team leader) can be fined for it.
In addition, fines are often handed out for incidents involving ‘sticky bottles’. This is when the rider saves energy by allowing themselves to be towed by the team car when receiving a bottle. Nowadays, riders also have to be mindful of their position on the bike. Positions such as the time trial position (placing wrists over the middle of the handlebars) during a stage and the ‘super-tuck’ (sitting on the top tube during a descent) have not been allowed by the jury for several years now. The UCI is responsible for this.
Fines are not the only penalty that the jury can impose. They can also issue time penalties or deduct points in secondary classifications such as the points classification or the mountain jersey. A rider’s UCI ranking points are not safe in the event of serious or repeated violations either. The severity of the violation, or the frequency of violations within a stage, also leads to a heavier penalty. The ultimate penalty would be disqualification, although this rarely happens in practice.
Fines and time penalties Giro d’Italia 2024
Stage 3
Certain riders did not follow the rules in stage three. Both Christophe Laporte and Bert Van Lerberghe were found to have used the sidewalk, which carries a severe penalty: a fine of 1,000 Swiss francs, a time penalty of twenty seconds, 25 points deduction on the UCI Ranking, two penalty points for the mountain classification, and forty points deduction in the points classification of this Giro.
Additionally, Intermarché-Wanty, Lidl-Trek and Soudal Quick-Step have each been fined 500 Swiss francs for not disposing of litter in the correct place by one of their riders.
Stage 2
After an opening day with zero incidents, the first fines were issued on day two. Team director Matti Breschel of EF Education-EasyPost was fined 200 Swiss francs for a violation related to handing food to a rider. Another fine, 500 Swiss francs for littering outside the designated area, was imposed on another team director, Alexandr Shefer of Astana Qazaqstan. Although one of his riders was responsible, they could not be identified. Lastly, 39 bicycles were checked, and no violations were found.
Stage 1
The peloton behaved exemplarily in the first stage of the Giro. Forty bikes were checked and the jury found all of these to be in perfect order.