Jasper Philipsen was relegated then reinstated after finishing third in the bunch sprint on stage 11 of the Tour de France on Wednesday, on an odd early evening in Nevers.
The Alpecin-Premier Tech rider was punished by the race jury after he appeared to move into a Picnic PostNL rider in the final 500m of the stage, however, after discussion with the team, the Belgian was reinstated. The stage was won by Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X Mobility), with Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM) in second.
In the space of an hour, the team went from being reasonably pleased with third place, to being confused and disappointed, back to close to their original state.
The news filtered through just under half an hour after the stage that Philipsen had been relegated, which completely changed the mood at the team bus, before that decision was reversed half an hour later further.
“We don’t know which phase it is,” Philip Roodhooft, the team’s manager, said immediately after the original relegation. “I think consistency is the key to every rule. If it’s not applied for everybody in the same way, then that creates trouble, but I don’t think anybody has a special eye on Jasper, I think it takes us to far to think that.
“On the other hand, from his position, now being disqualified and getting a yellow card, I think he feels like somebody has an eye on him, I think that’s normal.”
Twenty minutes later, Christophe Roodhooft, the team’s head sports director, told Wielerflits: “It is better the way it is. I think it is only fair. It was a good meeting. We reviewed everything together, and those people had a lot more footage than what we had seen. And ultimately, they consulted again and the decision was reversed.”
More to follow…
