Velonews: Sky’s Brailsford Calls For Consistency After Porte’s Wheel Disaster



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David Brailsford said he wants the UCI race jury to exercise common sense after his Giro leader Richie Porte was punished two minutes for taking assistance from another rider not on his Sky team. Photo: Andrew Hood | VeloNews.com
IMOLA, Italy (VN) — Sky’s general manager, David Brailsford, would like to see consistent rulings and a bit of common sense. His star and Giro d’Italia race favorite Richie Porte was docked two minutes in the overall Tuesday in Imola for receiving help from a rival team.
Brailsford spoke at the start of stage 11, which pushed off less than 24 hours later from the same city in Emilia-Romagna where Sky suffered its blow. Porte, instead of sitting third overall at 22 seconds, began the day 12th at 3:09.
“I’m not going to tell them how to do their job,” Brailsford said of the UCI four-person jury at the Giro.
“If they want to apply the letter of the law to every infringement, like touching the car or holding on, it would make the sport impossible.
“You have to use common sense. If someone has a puncture, gets behind the team car … Most times discretion and common sense should prevail. That’s why the rules are there, but the application of the rules is important, not the letter of the law.”
Porte flatted in the final seven kilometers of yesterday’s flat stage into Imola. He stopped and took a wheel from fellow Australian Simon Clarke, who races for rival team Orica-GreenEdge. His Sky teammates, like Kanstantsin Siutsou and Sebastian Henao, arrived moments later to pull him back into the race.
The escape won the day, the group with race leader Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) closed 18 seconds behind, and Porte a further 47 seconds back.
Porte slid from third to fourth overall. However, once the jury looked at the incident, he received a two-minute penalty that bumped him to 12th overall at 3:09 minutes. It applied Rule 12.1.040 / 8.2: “Non regulation assistance to a rider of another team,” penalizing Porte and Clarke both two minutes and 200 Swiss Francs.
“I didn’t know. I don’t think anyone really knew about the rule,” Porte told journalists standing outside the team bus door Wednesday morning.
“Simon’s a good mate of mine, he was there, so that’s what happened. I took the wheel, and I’ve paid the price.”
Brailsford listened nearby as his Giro leader spoke. The ‘Sir’ who guided Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome to Tour de France wins supported the rule, but would like to see leeway in its application.
Rules are often broken during the course of a race, but the jury either does not notice them or looks the other way. Last week, Gianni Meersman (Etixx-Quick-Step) needed a new wheel and was on his own when Sky helped him with a new wheel. Or often, in last group or the gruppetto, teams only have a few cars and must help each other. At the end of the stage, mechanics then give the rival team its wheels back.
“Meersman tweeted about that being fair play, and everyone was happy about that. Or [in the 2015 Paris-Roubaix] TGVs come, the train barrier comes down, the riders go underneath. We all see it, but no one is punished,” said Brailsford.
“The reason you have a jury and the court, you get the law out and look at the context, look what happened and the situation, and you decide, you don’t just dish out the same [punishment], there are different punishments. A little bit of discretion could have taken the heat out of the situation.”
Porte, who won three major stage races in the run-up to the Giro, was seen as a favorite to win the race overall.
The post Sky’s Brailsford calls for consistency after Porte’s wheel disaster appeared first on VeloNews.com.


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