With his team, like the International cycling Union (UCI), he decided to turn to justice “so that this type of behavior remains unpunished”. Identified, the spectator, a 28 -year -old Belgian who admitted “to have drunk too much”, conceded “an impulsive and stupid gesture”.
Since the start of his career, Van der Poel, whose domination seems to disturb certain spectators in cyclo-cross and on the classics, has been regularly the target of reprehensible acts. Jets of beer, urine or insults. The 2023 world champion refuses to get used to it. During his recent success at the end of the E3 GP, in Harelbeke, he had been targeted by spit. The author of the facts, identified by the Belgian police, will receive an administrative fine.
Faced with these kinds of misdeeds qualified as “hooliganism” by his team Alpecin-Deceuninck, the organizers seem helpless. Pasting on North Hell, several decrees prohibited the sale or transport of alcoholic beverages, except in “hospitality” spaces. This was the case in the town of Templeuve-en-Pévèle where the Van der Poel incident took place. In 2015, 500 CRS had been deployed in the boiling sector of the tree crossroads in the Roubaisian final. An expensive deployment that had not been renewed.
Merckx liver blow
This year, the organization had opted for a rope along the paved sectors to avoid too close contact between the peloton and the public. “But on courses of more than 200 kilometers, it is obviously impossible to control the flow of tens of thousands of spectators,” notes Scott Sunderland, race director of “Flanders Classics”. “Unlike other sports, cycling is a free show that allows fans to approach their champions as close as possible,” regularly repeats Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France.
