Tour of Flanders: "We are in the process of opposing ecology and cycling"

EDITORIAL

On Sunday April 4, the Tour of Flanders was marked by the disqualification of Swiss cyclist Michaël Schär.

The AG2R-Citroën rider was excluded from the competition for having thrown a container to the public, instead of doing so in the area authorized by the International Cycling Union (UCI).

Since the beginning of April, the UCI has regulated the areas where participants in the events can throw their water bottles, in order to limit plastic pollution.

A regulation applied to the letter which can cause penalties or even exclusion from the race. 

“It's been a long time since we had the right to a good sterile controversy between environmentalists and cycling enthusiasts! At least since the last pitched battles on the Tour de France caravan. to regain some measure in this debate? Since April 1, the UCI has prohibited riders from throwing their cans in the middle of nature. In principle, nothing to say. That sport, and in particular cycling, is concerned with environment, and trying to improve, to reduce its footprint, we can only rejoice. This is the meaning of history, the runners also have a duty to set an example, and besides the teams all applauded this measure at the start. The problem is the application to the letter, stupidly, of a regulation. This is what happened on Sunday. Switzerland's Michael Schär threw his bottle to a group spectators. ”He didn't throw it in a meadow along the road.

He sent it to people who were just waiting for it.

So the bottle did not end up in the wild, it will sit enthroned on a fan's shelf.

And yet, the rider was still disqualified.

It seems that the UCI is pulling out its teeth right away to show its green paw, and so that its bogus paragraph, I am talking about the object, fits well in the heads of the riders.

She forgot that what matters most in a rule is the spirit of the rule.

And there, by removing the nuances, we remove the spirit.  

It can scramble the message 

 With what the UCI has just done, we are in the process of opposing ecology and cycling, basically.

And no one has anything to gain from such cartoons.

What does it mean ?

That it is absolutely necessary to choose, either one defends the environment, or one respects the traditions which make the salt of the great popular races?

It's a bit of a binary reasoning.

It does not seem so complicated to ban the throwing of cans in nature but to allow them to satisfy the spectators.

And it is with these nuances that cycling fans will be made aware of the defense of the environment.

Not if they are forbidden to dream in the name of ecology.

If we take away from them this very special relationship with runners, in a free and popular sport, what we risk is to achieve the opposite effect.

Let the runners as well as the followers.

Respecting the environment cannot mean cutting cycling from its roots.

Admit that it would be a shame to defend nature by distorting a sport. "