As Tadej Pogačar was busy demolishing records and schooling the best cyclists in the world as if they were amateurs at the front of the race, there was drama following just behind as Santiago Buitrago closed the gap between himself and Lidl-Trek’s Giulio Ciccone, who’s currently sitting at the final spot for the GC top 10 at Tour de France 2024 — but after the race, Ciccone was caught by the cameras in a heated exchange with Buitrago, accusing him of a sticky bottle, and Buitrago hitting back saying: “I learnt it from you!”

Giulio Ciccone, last year’s winner of the mountains classification at Tour de France, has been quietly sitting in the top 10 of the general classification since stage 11, however after yesterday’s stage, the Italian rider dropped down to tenth as Derek Gee and Matteo Jorgensen leapfrogged him, the latter with a brave display on the final climb of Isola 2000 that would’ve earned him the stage win if not for Pogačar’s fireworks display in the final 10 kilometres.

It also meant that Santiago Buitrago, who previously occupied the last spot in the top 10 moved down to 11th, but his strong display towards the end of the queen stage yesterday saw him finish 34 seconds ahead of Ciccone, bringing down the gap between them to just 10 seconds, with another mountain stage set for today before the final individual time trial in Nice.

After the stage, Ciccone could be seen having an animated exchange with the Bahrain-Victorious rider, pointing out his antics of holding on to the bottle while receiving it from the team car for longer than required , thus getting pulled along nicely — a cheeky tactic commonly known as “sticky bottle”.

> “Not just a sticky bottle, a whole crate”: 24 riders disqualified at Giro Next Gen for holding onto cars and police motorbikes

Sticky bottles are fairly common in most races, as riders latch on to the bottle and let the team car propel them for a few extra precious seconds — but most of the times it’s  executed to help riders catch back on to a group or give the legs a momentary break, in a manner that’s seen as acceptable in the eyes of the race commissaries.

While Buitrago’s alleged sticky bottle was missed by most broadcast cameras, it looks like Ciccone and his teammates had a good view of it.

“Hey! We were three behind you, we saw everything. With the bottle like this, it’s not correct. This is the Tour de France,” Ciccone said to the 24-year-old Colombian, approaching him on his bike as he was sitting down and wiping away the sweat.

Not particularly amused at the interaction, Buitrago hit back at Ciccone, saying: “I’ve learnt it from you!”

Frederik Bohé, DS of Danish UCI Continental Team Airtox-Carl Ras, wrote on Twitter: “People seem confused on this subject. Everyone takes a sticky bottle, yes – but only behind the peloton, when getting back from business in the caravan. Taking one up the final climb when racing is full on is very different.”

There were some more contrasting opinions amongst cycling fans…

Riders clashing over and getting annoyed at their rivals’ sticky bottles is nothing new in cycling. Last year, there was a particularly glaring use of the technique at the second stage of the Tour des Alpes-Maritimes et du Var, with Team TotalEnergies using it to help their rider Mathieu Burgaudeau accelerate away from Ådne Holter.

The move, described as a “hand sling” by the Eurosport/GCN commentator, was criticised heavily, as was the resulting punishment of 200 CHF (Swiss Francs) for Team TotalEnergies’ Directeur Sportif, and 100 CHF for Burgaudeau himself.

sticky bottle at Tour des Alpes-Maritimes et du Var – screenshot via GCN
sticky bottle at Tour des Alpes-Maritimes et du Var – screenshot via GCN (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)

> ‘Sticky bottle’ rider gets sarcastic “chapeau” from rival who he accelerated away from

 After the race, Holter posted the clip to Twitter and sarcastically congratulated Team TotalEnergies with a “chapeau”, also adding the hashtag ‘#GreatMove’.

Holter’s Uno X team CEO Jens Haughland also took to social media to denounce the move by Team TotalEnergies, saying: “Come on. Just race as professionals.”

Perhaps one of the most high-profile sticky bottle incidents came back in 2017, as Romain Bardet was kicked off Paris-Nice after accepting the stickiest of sticky bottles during the opening stage of the week-long race. 

Bardet, who had crashed with 22 kilometres remaining of the stage, later took to Twitter to excuse himself, saying that “nothing justifies the prolonged help from a team car” – although that hadn’t stopped him from benefiting himself from a practice he acknowledged is widespread in the peloton.

More recently, we also saw a case of not just a sticky bottle, but a “whole crate” at the Giro Next Gen, the under-23 version of Giro d’Italia last year, as 24 riders were disqualified for holding on to team cars and even police motos, all of them going uphill in tandem and thus giving road.cc and cycling a hall of fame-worthy image…