Luke Rowe and Tony Martin expelled from Tour de France
Tony Martin (Jumbo-Visma) and Luke Rowe (Ineos) have been kicked off the Tour de France after an on-road spat on stage 17.
The UCI decision came following a review the incident after the completion of the stage.
Tempers fraying in the final week of @LeTour! Why was Tony Martin trying to run Luke Rowe off the road? pic.twitter.com/RcZ7djXOhN
— GlobalCyclingNetwork (@gcntweet) July 24, 2019
Television cameras showed at least part of the tiff, which occurred towards the end of the stage. On an otherwise calm day in the bunch, Jumbo-Visma and Ineos were both positioned at the front of the pack as the peloton rolled onto the final climb, with the day’s breakaway well up the road fighting for the stage win. Coming out of a corner on the right side of the road with Rowe just behind, Martin looked back and then rode to the edge of the tarmac, squeezing Rowe into a tight spot.
Rowe stayed upright and dropped back slightly, and both riders continued on. There did not appear to be any further confrontation during the stage.
Whether there was a prior incident that raised tensions remains unclear, as television cameras only picked up Martin running Rowe off the road.
Both riders were asked about the spat after the finish, before the UCI’s decision was official. Martin did not address the incident. Rowe downplayed it as a non-issue.
“We just got in each other’s way,” Luke Rowe said after the stage. “That’s bike racing. No stress. All good.”
He did not seem interested in dissecting the incident further.
“I don’t know how many Tour de Frances you’ve ridden but it does get a bit tense at times,” he said. “But at the end of the day, you’ve got to have broad shoulders and it’s no problem. We rode the last 10 kilometers of the stage talking to each other.”
Ineos’s team leader Geraint Thomas reinforced the notion that there was nothing to the tiff.
“Luke, Tony Martin, (Imanol) Erviti at Movistar, they all do the same job, they’ve got to get their leaders into a good position,” Thomas said.
“They are always jostling for position and that’s always happening. It’s nothing crazy, really.”
The UCI apparently saw the situation differently. On the eve of a trio of brutal stages in the Alps, Ineos and Jumbo-Visma will both be short one domestique each following the jury’s decision to disqualify Rowe and Martin from the 2019 Tour.
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