Three of Ben O’Connor’s Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale teammates who received yellow cards on Wednesday after stage 11 of the Vuelta a Espana. Why? It’s not uncommon for general classification teams to “block” the road to prevent other riders from joining a breakaway. But when one of Ben O’Connor’s teammates caused Richard Carapaz to crash, the jury had seen enough and handed out not one, but three yellow cards.
UPDATE: Ben O’Connor deleted his X-account and all posts shortly afterwards…
O’Connor shared his anger at the decision in an X-post. “Dear UCI, what dangerous maneuver did my teammates Bouchard, Lafay and Armirail do in your opinion that deserved a yellow card? The road was blocked by us, as in every race, after the breakaway set off. We never tried to cause an accident and never forced anyone off the road.”
The Australian refuses to attribute responsibility to his team for the subsequent crash of Carapaz, who had attempted to pass the French team’s roadside gravel blockade, but there is enough footage to show O’Connor’s teammate blocking the left side of the road, forcing the Ecuadorian rider out of the lane.
And as cycling’s popular Twitter account, La Flamme Rouge, points out, even “obstruction by a rider or vehicle to prevent or delay the movement of another rider or vehicle” is prohibited by UCI rules and is punishable by a fine of up to 500 CHF, classification penalties and, now, a yellow card.
Finally, O’Connor is annoyed by the jury’s inconsistent decision-making. “The yellow card is actually meant to be used for dangerous riding. For example, if we are at the front of the peloton and a rider goes off the road into the gravel to get past, isn’t that a danger?”
Objectively speaking, however, there is not much to add in his defence. When O’Connor looks at the footage again in a few days, he will likely conclude that his team’s actions did indeed tick all the boxes to rightly earn him a booking.
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