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news
Nils Eekhoff (picture credit Simon Wilkinson, SWPix.com).JPGLegal action threatened after Nils Eekhoff stripped of U23 World title
The agent of Nils Eekhoff, the Dutch rider stripped of the victory in the men’s under-23 road race at the UCI Road Cycling World Championships yesterday, has threatened to take legal action in an attempt to have the race jury’s decision overturned.
Eekhoff, aged 21 and a member of Team Sunweb’s development team, was adjudged to have illegally drafted a car as he attempted to rejoin the peloton after crashing with 125 kilometres of the race from Doncaster to Harrogate still to ride.
Full video of the #eekhoffgate episode
UCI had a 124 kilometers to take action.@nilseekhoff is the U23 World Champion to me pic.twitter.com/NihEw5cqm4— Alex Rasmussen (@alexfalkeman) September 27, 2019
He was one of a trio of riders who bridged across to the front quartet as the race approached the final kilometre and was strongest in the sprint. It quickly became apparent, however, that the race jury was reviewing the result and after almost half an hour of deliberation, the win was awarded to Italy’s Samuele Battistella.
Yesterday evening, his management agency SEG told cyclingnews.com: "Together with Team Sunweb we'll research the situation and the legal options we've to defend Nils and make sure he gets the rainbow jersey that he deserves. Our legal department is currently studying the case."
Eekhoff, who was visibly distraught after learning of the race jury’s decision, said: "I crashed, got a dislocated shoulder, put it back, but also had a mechanical so it took longer.
"Then I got back on, the car brought me back to the caravan, and at that moment I rode myself towards the peloton.
"At the moment I crashed, it was still 125 kilometres to go. The race was still to be ridden. In my opinion, I fought for it. It should be possible after a crash that you can be brought back to the caravan. I had no idea I was taking a risk."
In a statement, the UCI said:
The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) wishes to provide further information on the disqualification yesterday of Dutch rider Nils Eekhoff at the Men U23 road race during the 2019 UCI Road World Championships in Yorkshire, Great Britain.
The rider was disqualified for sheltering behind a vehicle (4.7 of article 2.12.007) for over 2 minutes.
The maximum sanction provided by the article was considered appropriate due to the time spent sheltering.
The decision was taken by the commissaires’ panel after the race based on images from a moto camera available to the UCI video commissaire. Race officials have reviewed the images (available here), followed due process by hearing the rider and team before making the decision.
Also, the race communique lists two other riders disqualified under the same article and according to the same process.
As the world governing body of cycling the UCI is deeply committed to ensure the integrity of cycling and the fairness on the field of play.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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25 comments
What a lot of nonsense I'm reading in the comments here. As a UCI DS, I have a fairly good insight into this. We are told, every race is the same in the managers meeting, should your rider have a crash or mechanical. Assist them and then get them back to the peloton as quickly, but safely as possible. That is throughout cycling, it is an unspoken rule, you get them back to the last car in the convoy and then you FOLLOW your rider as they use all the other cars to get back to the peloton. You then return to your place in the convoy.
I don't think the length of his draft was anything unusual UNTIL they hit the convoy because the cars were all over the place with large gaps between, his team car did the wrong thing and kept leapfrogging to assist him further, which isn't accepted. His DS should have been getting verbally told to stop over radio tour. If this was ignored, that is normally a DQ. We draft our riders until commissaries say "enough" or "stop". It can't be any simpler than that.
Looking at the elite mens race today, it happened multiple times, I don't see anyone down as DQ though. One rule for Nils and another for everyone else. I can't wait for this to go to CAS as I don't think the UCI can exclude him based on just that video, as his agent/team can provide HOURS of footage from races going back as far as video exists, showing drafting going unpunished.
I understand several riders were disqualified due to excessive drafting of team car
This is the problem with cycling. Too many relics from the days when men drunk wine and stopped for a baguette off the locals. If you want a rule, write it down and ratify it. Too much turn a blind eye leads to confusion and calls of favouritism etc.
I can't think of another sport where so many unwritten rules are referenced.
Good insight on what’s considered the norm. I thought it was a bit strange that the UCI issued that clip of the infringement. I saw another that showed him in the convoy with a big gap to close to the next car and he wasn’t making it, so the team car came in and one sticky bottle later he was back in the game. Who knows how many times that happened?
cycle racing is a complicated arrangement, where the adjudicator cannot be everywhere and receive all the information in real time. There have been many after the race decisions, some notable Nibali holding onto team car whizzing up a climb, Kittel being punch by another rider-both incidents caught on camera and reported after the finish.
The Dutch rider was unlucky to be caught in the crash and took too much advantage from his the car to get back on. Drafting behind a vehicle is like descending on a fast hill, it takes little effort to ride at 30+mph. I remember doing it behind a bus when a teenager, my speed was well over 30mph for several miles on a shallow descent where I could only max out mid 20s on my own.- mechanical speedo back then
First of all it was a phenominal ride by Eekhoff and he clearly demonstrated that he was the best rider on the day. Anyone who follows bike racing knows that there is a certain amount of liency allowed re drafting cars after a mechanical or a crash. It's up to the UCI jury to decide what is too much. The UCI jury are there to aply their judgement in such cases, and they must have been aware of what was happening at the time so they should have disqualified him there and then if they were unhappy with his drafting. To make their decision after the race was all wrong in my opinion. Can you imgine that happening in any other sport? Sadly this is another example of how badly the UCI govern cycle racing.
I found this post on Cycling Tips quite interesting:
https://cyclingtips.com/2019/09/the-secret-pro-drafting-cars-happens-nils-eekhoff-should-be-world-champ/
Having now seen the full footage, I'm still not sure how I feel about the desicision other than to say that the rules aren't clear enough. Completely agree with iandusud that the late descision was bad and that an early descision would've changed the dynamics of the race significantly.
The full video of the Incident is here... He follows his team car - on the bumper for 2 mins and 24 seconds overtaking other cyclists.
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/uci-release-video-showing-nils-eekhoff-disqualified-world-championships-439001?jwsource=cl
The decision was correct - if not a little late coming.
If they had released the footage yesterday, most of the uproar would not have happened, its not Mi6 for gods sake - and we all know where they are based, and they are a secret spy service for gods sake.
Maybe it should be like motor racing, where a pace car comes out if there's a crash.
Could be an overweight middle aged bloke on an e-bike that gets deployed to slow down the peloton. Actually, I think I'd be quite good at that.
I'm still impressed how he popped his dislocated shoulder back in and then almost won.
Owww!
Seen the UCI latest video, he was drafting for several minutes to pace back into the Peleton. Correct decision
Yeah, a 15s draft...so what. Minutes of it...nah.
Think of all the energy he saved to spend at the end. Not quite sure of the dutch reasoning that since it was a long way out then it doesn't count.
Showing that all the howls of rage on twitter and elsewhere calling the UCI jury all the names under the sun as the work of knee-jerk reacting fools. Including plenty of pro cyclists.
Having said that, the UCI's inconsistent application of its own vague rules and even its high level decisions make it an easy for criticism. See the AIGCP's statement on the proposed 2020 Classics series.
What message is the team manager (and driver if they are different people) sending out to youngsters? That it is OK to motorpace (cheat) in a bike race. I am pretty disgusted that the rider thought that his actions were acceptable, this is the next generation of professional rider who is going to blatantly cheat in full view of others, I wonder where he draws the line in hs own mind as to what is acceptable and what isnt. Why didnt they just give him a bike with a motor in it, it is basically the same but wouldnt have been so obvious. I hope that every break he gets in is neutralised and that his opportunity to cheat honest riders out of their just rewards is severly restricted. The driver should also be banned from ever driving in a race convoy ever again.
Don't chrash
There's also the risk aspect - if they explicitly allow drafting back there's a risk of serious accidents such as the one that almost did for Keagan Girdlestone. Keeping it vague as it is currently means there's less chance of litigation.
So on twitter Daniel zfriebe posted a video from a following motorbike showing him drafting (and even overtaking other rider/s) for over 2 minutes (actual footage may be a lot longer, the bit where he stopped drafting wasn't shown) I'm assuming they had to collect and review this footage...but yeah, how long is that acceptable?? Maybe they did make the correct decision?
Certainly could've been the right call, but it's just a shame that it's such a subjective and totally avoidable mess. The situation doesn't say much for the professionalism of the UCI when we're seeing this type of thing in the worlds (not to mention the other cock-ups).
Could surely be easily fixed with something along the lines of, "If a lone rider is distanced by (insert time gap threshold here) from the peloton following a racing incident, and when more than (insert number of kilometers or % of race distance here) of racing remains, said rider is permitted to draft team/caravan vehicles until the rider reaches the back of peloton. If these criterior are not met, no amount of drafting is permitted."
I don't think you can tighten this up too much, there are too many viarables at play. Allowing some descretion to the commissaires is problly the best way to go. Of course there will always be arguments along the lines of 'how long is too long' - but from watching thre full video, in this case, the drafting (2 minutes and more) was way over the top and clearly out of order. The car he was following went flying past several other riders during the course of the tow, so this is actually a clear cut case.
The sock thing was bizare, but didn't hamper the racing. The weather was not the UCI's fault. This judgement was late, and that is bad - but better late than wrong.
Good points well made. I differ in opinion in that I do think that the UCI can tighten up on this (and some of the other more subjective rules) to make them crystal clear, and I think that doing so will be good for the sport, avoiding situations where the podium changes after-the-fact and hopefully reducing the anger/heartache on both sides of the judgement.
I’m not saying that my suggestion was the right way to go about it, others have made good points about safety/deliberate cheating and there’s plenty of arguments for no drafting at all. I just feel like there’s a fair amount of (sometimes justified) animosity towards the UCI at the moment that isn’t particularly healthy for the sport.
We can't see how long he's behind the car for prior to the start of that video clip so perhaps the judgement came from something before that?
The rules definitely need to be clearer and by clearer I mean that they should be logical and precise enough for riders to be able to apply them to their own situations out on the road.
Application of certain rules (like the case in point here) and the UCI's judgement of foul play, should also be clearly tied to the number of kilometers still to race. If an offence occured with more than 100km still to race, the UCI should not have waited until the end of the race to adjudicate the decision and if it truly takes that long to decide, surely the rules aren't clear enough.
Really feel for Eekhoff here. He clearly had no idea, and after popping his dislocated shoulder back in place, who in their right mind would deny him a draft up to the caravan 125kms out?
I kinda sympathise with him, crash victims and riders that suffer a mechanical should be allowed some leeway...but like many people, I'm not sure of the rules here. And would the other riders be allowed to draft back too? If he hadnt dragged those other riders back to the front group would pidcock have won?
They probably need to be clear in the rules about what is allowed as no one is quite sure of what is acceptable?
He did look to be using the cars a fair bit. It seems to be OK in the pro Peleton, but dont know how stringent the World Championship are with drafting- Strict by the decision handed down.
Taking legal action wont come to much
These worlds have been a clown show so far what with the sock measuring stuff, standing water all over the TT course and now this. Fingers crossed for great races today and tomorrow.