Nils Eekhoff, the Dutch rider who was disqualified after apparently wining the men’s under-23 road race at the world championships in Yorkshire last month, is taking the UCI to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in a bid to have the original result reinstated.
Following the finish of the race in Harrogate, the race jury ruled that the 21-year-old had illegally drafted his team car as he chased back to the peloton following a crash early in the race.
As a result, Eekhoff was disqualified, bursting into tears as he was led away from the podium area, with the victory instead being awarded to the Italian rider, Samuele Batistella.
According to NOS.nl, his action against the UCI has the backing of the Dutch national cycling federation the KNWU, with national coach Thorwald Veneberg calling for the decision to be overturned and for clarity over exactly why Eekhoff was .disqualified, something he claimed was missing.
“In this way, perhaps something good can come out of this situation,” he said. “At least have a good look at those regulations and their application. And then we will see what the result will be.”
However, the UCI has already given a detailed explanation of how the decision was reached as well as releasing a video showing the incident that led to Eekhoff’s disqualification.
The governing body said: “The rider was disqualified for sheltering behind a vehicle for over two minutes.
“The maximum sanction provided by the article was considered appropriate to the time spent sheltering.
“The decision was taken by the commissaires’ panel after the race based on images from a moto camera available to the UCI video commissaire.
“Race officials have reviewed the images, followed due process by hearing the rider and team before making the decision.”
9 thoughts on “Nils Eekhoff takes UCI to court over disqualification from World Championship Under-23 road race victory”
About time and it is my
About time and it is my understanding, he and the federation aren’t looking to get his title back, which in my eyes he won fair and square. They are looking to have the UCI apply rules correctly, consistently and across all levels/races.
What Nils did is what every rider who’s ever had a crash or mechanical has done over and over. As a DS I’ve driven countless riders back and sometimes for much longer than Nils was on the car, sometimes with the rider holding onto the car rather than using their own steam to get back and it has been overlooked by the commissaries on almost every occasion, sometimes I’ll pick up a warning or a fine, but that is normally rare.
Look at La Vuelta this season, when a number of riders came down, including Roglic the leader of the race. There is a gentleman’s agreement, not to attack the leader if something happens, but Movistar decided to forgo this and attack. The commissaries then openly and over the radio told teams to use the cars to draft riders back after the crash. So why should that be allowed, but Nils is not afforded the same after his crash?
The UCI needs to either enforce their rules across all levels and races equally and fairly or change them so that they can’t be circumnavigated at will or leaving it up to commissaries to decided what they will and won’t enforce.
The guy has some nerve, what
The guy has some nerve, what he did was cheating, pure and simple. He is lucky that he didnt have a big suspension. I would like to know where in the guy draws the line in his own mind between what is acceptable and what isnt. Why dont they just hand him an electric bike for 5 minutes, basically what he did was motorpacing. The driver should be banned from driving in a race convoy ever again too.Gkam, just because it is done regularly (EPO, Armstrong et al spring to mind) doesnt make it right. I would like to see the UCI (not fit for purpose in my opinion) ban sticky bottles, magic spanners and pacing back after mechanicals and crashes, they are all part of racing and affect everyone at some time or another.
This is kind of the fault of
This is kind of the fault of those in charge for letting so many ‘rules’ go unenforced or carrying on the nonsense of unwritten rules. Right up a complete ruleset and enforce it, ironing out all the variables as they appear and then hopefully in 5 years time everyone will know exactly what they are doing.
Look at motorsport, there’s almost a rule for everything that could ever happen and it only takes one race where there wasn’t a rule and there will be one for next race.
Isn’t a GC contender/leader
Isn’t a GC contender/leader riding over x amount of days, to win overall, a totally different kettle of fish than a one day road race? I cannot see the comparison between La Veuelta and the World Championship race. Nils was not in the lead at time of crash, therefore had no right to have assistance to get back in touch with the leaders. Roglic was in red (leading) when Movistar attacked and was in contention with the front at time of crash, therefore would have had a severe misfortune against others dastardly gain.
Dodging between cars, sticky
Dodging between cars, sticky bottle etc. is accepted…. but have you seen the video of what he did ?, it was one car, his car that motor-paced him back, they even lost him around a roundabout and slowed down so he could catch them back up… and off they went again, it was so blatant it was unbeilable, to compare this with other examples is ridiculous
isnt it irrelevant what other
isnt it irrelevant what other examples there are though where it wasnt applied ? those are down to the individual commissaires and race juries to decide and enforce as they see fit and for teams to file objections if they dont see those rules being applied uniformly, its a bit like the overlap & sprinters line in track cycling,the rules are always more stringently applied at the world championships, whilst at earlier events they are often overlooked even if the same rule still applies.
so as long as there were no equivalent examples at the worlds where the rule wasnt applied, which I dont believe was the case but I dont have access to all that footage or data, and as you sign up to abiding by those rules and decisions of the race juries/commissaires when you sign on, then theres probably no case to answer here,but I can understand why they are trying to test the extent of how the rule should be enforced.
There’s a bit of drafting to
There’s a bit of drafting to get back on to the peloton, and then there’s taking the absolute pi$$ Nibali style. Eekhoff was unarguably in the latter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLL2XcRHuiI
I agree with you Jimmy. It’s
I agree with you Jimmy. It’s not even discreet. That’s cheating pure and simple
120km out, big crash,
120km out, big crash, dislocated shoulder, pull back to the caravan at the end of the peloton, give the man a break.