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« on: July 28, 2023, 10:16:36 PM »
When have the men had the team car go through the convoy as a pacer? Answer is never.
They use the other team cars and are reminded not to spend too long behind a single car.
They made it that obvious a penalty had to be made. Penalising the team car is pointless, the only penalty that matters is any against a rider. And if they let it go, it would have green-lighted this type of activity.
I recall men cyclists being kicked off tours (not TdF) for much less significant offences a few years ago. The only thing is the double standards of which male competitor. One example was an Aussie cyclist who got kicked out of a tour after spectators blocked half the road & he went on the footpath for several hundred meters. It was a straight road and he lost 50 places in the peloton, but they claimed he got an advantage.
That same week, the favoured Sagan on live broadcast took a deliberate shortcut through a town square because he was at the back of the peloton and needed to get to the front, and they ignored it. That was actually the point in which I stopped watching the sport.