{"id":10364,"date":"2025-02-08T07:42:38","date_gmt":"2025-02-08T07:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/etoile-de-besseges-ineos-among-teams-to-pull-out-following-safety-concerns\/"},"modified":"2025-02-08T07:42:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-08T07:42:38","slug":"etoile-de-besseges-ineos-among-teams-to-pull-out-following-safety-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/etoile-de-besseges-ineos-among-teams-to-pull-out-following-safety-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Etoile de Besseges: Ineos among teams to pull out following safety concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Five teams, including Britain&#8217;s Ineos Grenadiers, pulled out of the third stage of the Etoile de Besseges road cycling race in France following incidents of traffic interfering with the peloton.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Friday&#8217;s stage from Besseges-Besseges was neutralised early on after riders came across a vehicle on a roundabout. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The day before, a motorist tried to enter the course as the riders were arriving at high speed on a narrow road 10 miles from the finish in Marguerittes, causing chaotic scenes in the peloton. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The incident forced 25-year-old Belgian rider Maxim Van Gils to abandon the race after he crashed and needed to go to hospital. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a statement, Ineos said the safety of their riders and staff &#8220;is of paramount importance&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lidl-Trek, EF Education-EasyPost, Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe and Soudal Quick-Step also withdrew from stage three because of safety concerns. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Soudal-QuickStep said it was &#8220;unacceptable&#8221; that unauthorised motor vehicles were allowed on the course.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is not clear yet whether those teams will return for Saturday&#8217;s stage four from Vauvert to Mont Bouquet. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">UCI Europe Tour <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DFxq1TWMhDE\/?hl=en&amp;img_index=1\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">posted on Instagram<span class=\"visually-hidden ssrcss-1f39n02-VisuallyHidden e16en2lz0\">, <!-- -->external<\/span><\/a> an image of riders trying to pass a lorry on the course, writing: &#8220;Pictures we don&#8217;t want to see.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The post added: &#8220;The security of our riders is the most important thing. It&#8217;s not necessary to mention the names of the riders who died last year to prove that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Belgian rider Thomas de Gendt, who retired last year after 16 years as a professional, wrote on X: &#8220;Maybe now the organisers and UCI will start to listen. Otherwise we just stay monkeys in a circus.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Governing body the UCI later issued a statement saying it was investigating and would act.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Measures are being taken to avoid a repetition of the problems that occurred on these stages,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The UCI emphasises that it takes the matter of rider security extremely seriously.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Race organisers said they could not afford to fully close roads on the route but were doing what they could to protect riders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async defer src=\"https:\/\/platform.instagram.com\/en_US\/embeds.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/cycling\/articles\/cg45pwv60exo\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Five teams, including Britain&#8217;s Ineos Grenadiers, pulled out of the third stage of the Etoile de Besseges road cycling race in France following incidents of traffic interfering with the peloton. Friday&#8217;s stage from Besseges-Besseges was neutralised early on after riders came across a vehicle on a roundabout. The day before, a motorist tried to enter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cycling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10366,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364\/revisions\/10366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}