The times of riders celebrating their teammates’ victories from behind them within the bunch could now be gone, after the UCI launched a brand new rule to clamp down on the behaviour.
Filed on 23 December, and now in impact, the brand new rule will see fines, relegations and yellow playing cards dealt to riders “decelerating throughout a dash and endangering different riders”.
The governing physique particularly cites sure actions as punishable, together with: staying inside the line of different riders, speaking on the radio, taking one’s fingers off the handlebars whereas within the bunch, and celebrating within the bunch.
Fines for many who break the rule vary from 100CHF (£89) to 500CHF (£446), relying on the extent of the race and severity of the offence. The culpable rider might additionally face relegation to final place of their group throughout the road, and a yellow card – a measure launched in August 2024 to sanction unsafe behaviour.
In stage races, riders who break the rule might be given a 25% penalty of their tally on the factors or mountains classification.
The brand new rule got here into impact on 1 January 2025.
(Picture credit score: UCI)
Finally yr’s Vuelta a España, Alpecin-Deceuninck rider Edward Planckaert was fined 200CHF (£179), docked 10 UCI factors, and given a yellow card for “improper conduct that endangers others”, after he celebrated his teammate Kaden Groves’s victory from the bunch.
Planckaert’s motion, and deceleration within the ultimate 100 metres, was deemed to have endangered the road of Lotto Dstny’s Victor Campanaerts, who had sprinted from behind him.
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The brand new rule comes as a part of the UCI’s persevering with bid to make highway racing safer. In 2023, the governing physique launched its SafeR scheme, an impartial entity created to enhance occasion security.
“The security of riders, in addition to folks within the race convoy and on the roadside, is a precedence for the UCI,” mentioned UCI president David Lappartient on the time.
“We have now to acknowledge that the variety of incidents and accidents proceed to rise. A number of components have contributed to this unlucky development, together with the fast growth of highway furnishings designed to manage automobile speeds, notably in city areas, in addition to the elevated pace of at the moment’s peloton.
“The UCI and all of the biking households should unite to reverse this development and this frequent need to seek out options collectively is embodied within the creation of SafeR.”
To this point, measures have included the introduction of the yellow card system, restrictions on using earpieces throughout races, and a rise of the 3km dash rule – whereby a rider who falls sufferer to an incident within the ultimate 3km of a dash stage is credited with the identical time of their group – to a most of 5km.