A climate protestor disrupted the closing stages of the Tour of Bruges by sitting in the middle of the road as the peloton approached.
The incident occurred on a cobbled section of road with 30 kilometres remaining of the one-day race formerly known as Classic Brugge-De Panne. Wouter Mouton, a well-known pro-Palestinian and environmental activist, sat in the middle of the road wearing a cycling helmet white t-shirt with the words “kids dying by the climate crisis in 3,2,1…” emblazoned on the back.
As outriding motorbikes stopped in an effort to get Mouton to move from the road, the motorbike’s deceleration led some riders in the peloton to brake suddenly, causing a crash. TV footage meanwhile showed Mouton moving out of the peloton’s way moments before the peloton reached him. Among the riders that came down was defending champion Juan Sebastian Molano.
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It is not the first time Mouton has disrupted a race, having also ran across the road during the finale of the Tour of Flanders in 2022, Het Laaste Nieuws reports. His other activities include defacing world-famous paintings, tying himself to a goal post during the Belgian FA Cup final, and spraying the British Embassy in Brussels with red paint.
Mouton’s precedent led to recognition, with Sporza commentator Karl Vannieuwkerke exclaiming “It’s him again” before Sporza’s write-up of the incident described Mouton as “notorious”.
A police spokesperson said that Mouton would be “administratively arrested” whilst investigations are carried out to determine “what his intentions were and whether he directly caused the crash.” The crash is the first major disruption in 2026 to be caused by protest, but it is unlikely to be the last. In 2025, protestors ran across the road in all three men’s Grand Tours, whilst the Vuelta a Espana saw several stages shortened or neutralised due to protests against the inclusion of Israel-Premier Tech in light of the war in Gaza. The team’s ownership and registered nationality has since changed and the team is now known as NSN Pro Cycling.
Environmental protests have also been staged at the Tour de France and at the World Championships in Glasgow in 2023.
The race was won in a bunch sprint by Dylan Groenewegen for the Unibet Rose Rockets ahead of Jasper Philipsen. It is the first WorldTour victory for the team, only established in 2023 and with roots in a Dutch YouTube channel. The team are due to make their Grand Tour debut at the Giro d’Italia in May, where Groenewegen and veteran climber Wout Poels will likely lead the hunt for stage wins.
14 thoughts on ““Notorious” climate protester causes crash in Belgian race after sitting on road in front of charging peloton”
I support XR, JSO, InsulateBritain etc etc. This might be beyond the pale even for me though!
What do you expect from proterrorist? Ps he loves hurting people, but you cant hurt him!
I generally support the motivations of those organisations, I do question the efficacy of some of their methods of protest.
Inconvenience those who are at fault, don’t inconvenience regular people who are caught in the trap, it turns opinion against the cause more than it raises awareness of it.
This guy is not a protester, he’s wearing the façade of a protester as an excuse to be a dick.
Another person here who is somewhat concerned about climate change (I’m not as doomful as some though – it’s a huge problem we have created, it will cause quite a lot of problems and misery for many, it will have many costs, but it is also survivable and we do have a capacity to adapt and various prevention strategies also have their own costs and complexities – all of these factors must be balanced against each other, which is another complexity). And concerned about the frightening disregard for human rights and peace by a number of nations.
I fully agree protests like this just hurt these causes. I would not be surprised if one day we find out 1 or 2 of these protestors or the people driving these misplaced-direct-action protest movements were agent provocateurs funded by interests against these causes.
Protesters that cause damage eg: a crash in cycling, must pay for the damage to the cycles and the injuries to cyclist etc. If someone dies its a manslaughter charge. So keep your dog on a lead, better still indoors and don’t sit in the middle of the road protesting you have to keep your dog on a lead or that you have to move your parked car.
For the sake of consistency, should US fossil fuel corporations pay the $10 trillion damage they have caused since 1990 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/25/us-climate-damage-research? Including millions of deaths.
Why do these ‘protestors’ just get of Scott free every time in spite of disrupting probably hundreds of lives with their stupid road blocking antics?
No one will shed a tear if he were allowed to protest from a windowless cell.
So long as the same applies to black cab drivers & farmers et al clogging up the streets of London every time they want to moan about something
Get off scot-free like the dozens of climate protesters who’ve been jailed in the UK in recent years, you mean?
A bunch of spoiled rich people, mostly youngsters from rich families. like the ones who are destroying pictures of famous artists in the Louvre or they stick themselves on tarmac!
So only poor people should be allowed to protest against climate change? And they should do it only in ways that don’t get media attention or inconvenience people too, right?
You have no knowledge whatsoever of protesters’ family backgrounds or personal circumstances. Your comment is simply a poor attempt to delegitimise protest.
If they are “youngsters from rich families” (as you have evidence, I’ve no doubt) then hats off to them for having some principles instead of simply accepting the life into which they were born, driving around in gas-guzzling sports cars and flying in private jets like the “Rich kids of Instagram”. Maybe they are sometimes misguided but I’d far sooner young people were exercised about the state of the world and determined to change it for the better than that they just sit back and let it go to hell as previous generations have been all too inclined to do. Good luck to them.
There is a problem with Petrochemical and associated interests sponsoring cycling. The riders pay is substantially from that sector. Protest is valid, cycling should clean up. There is however no excuse for protest that risks injury to the riders.