The race covered 180.4 km, from Brossard to Montreal, won in 4:45:09. After the finish, the jury sanctioned two riders for the same reason: Demi Vollering and Austria’s Katharina Sadnik, for “taking an unauthorised position or point of support on the bike.” The exact offence is not specified.
The jury’s report does not mention any other infringement. Both riders leave with exactly the same package: 1,000 Swiss francs, a yellow card and 25 UCI points deducted. For Vollering, 29, the sanction lands on the very day she beat Katarzyna Niewiadoma in a sprint, at the end of a spectacular final, to become world champion.
My position on the Kwaremont (a Tour of Flanders climb) has never been sanctioned by anyone. Yet with the backpack, I hold positions the rulebook never imagined: chin on the stem, elbows out, one hand on the phone to check the segment. On the cobbles I add a posture I call the garden chair: all the weight back, eyes fixed on the café at the top. If the jury turned up on a Sunday at twenty past nine, the club would be in the red. At Montreal’s rate, I did the sums in the car park: we’d have to sell the fourth bike in the garage, maybe the third. What comforts me is that the report doesn’t specify the offence. It’s the same at our place: nobody quite knows what they’re holding against me, but they hold it against me anyway, at the café. I’m not saying I ride like a world champion. I’m saying that on the question of positions, we can talk about it. At the café, we compared elbows till noon.
The rulebook, at least, has the merit of symmetry: same offence, same sanction, for the new world champion as for Sadnik. Xavier has been asking the club for the same justice for years, without a jury or a card, just a coffee.
It’s true, we checked: WielerFlits.
