Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) said an official race vehicle had impeded him during the decisive Col du Haag climb on Stage 14 of the Tour de France on Saturday. The Belgian said the organisation car forced him to reduce his speed during the final 1.5km of climbing. The incident was not shown on the live television broadcast, but a photograph subsequently appeared to support his account.
Speaking to Sporza at the finish, Evenepoel said he had still been riding strongly when he encountered the vehicle near the summit of the Category 1 climb.
“I have the feeling that I rode the last kilometre, or even the last 1.5 kilometres, strongly uphill, although I was held up by the race organisation’s car,” Evenepoel said. “That forced me to ride a little more slowly.”
The SWPix photograph below shows Evenepoel visibly blocked by the race car, while a separate image from the Cor Vos archive appears to show Evenepoel’s actively touching the back of the vehicle. Radsport-News.com featured that image and reported that spectators occupied the available space on the left of the road, preventing him from passing on that side. On the other side the road was roped off so Evenepoel had nowhere to go with huge crowds resulting in a gap that the Olympic champion was forced to chase again once through the blockage.
Tens of thousands of spectators lined the Stage 14 route through the Vosges. The Col du Haag, crossed twice from different directions during the stage (the first on the Grand Ballon ascent), was the final major climb before the plateau towards Le Markstein.
Evenepoel limits his loss to Vingegaard
Evenepoel had been distanced by a very strong pace on the final climb set by podium rival Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma-Lease a Bike) who was riding to gain time on Evenepoel and other rivals before Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates XRG) eventually attacked despite looking a bit off-colour by his lofty standards.
The world champion went on to win the stage and Vingegaard suffered from his efforts, losing time to Pogačar as well as Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Paul Seixas (Decathlon-CMA CGM) with the Danish star only managing to take four seconds out of Evenepoel in the end as the world time trial champion used his power on the flat and the fact he hadn't gone into the red, so surged back towards his rivals, even distancing Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) and teammate Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) by a couple of seconds thanks to his powerful sprint at the end.
There has been no response to the comments and the photograph by ASO or the UCI but as Evenepoel was already off the back and did manage to get back to within fours seconds of Vingegaard at the finish in Le Markstein, specific action is unlikely.
Cover image credit: Zac Williams/SWpix.com
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