UCI officials overturn their original ruling and punish all of the Spanish team
BMC's Tejay van Garderen drives the pace during the stage 2 team time trial at Volta a Catalunya (Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Following a night of refection, the UCI has overturned the results of the Volta a Catalunya team time trial, punishing the whole Movistar team for pushing and awarding the stage victory to BMC.
The Movistar team was penalised one minute and so drops to third in the updated stage results, 58 seconds behind BMC. Ben Hermans is the new race leader as stage 3 heads into the mountains on Wednesday.
Movistar finished two seconds faster than BMC but then Spain's Jose Joaquin Rojas was stripped of the lead of the Volta a Catalunya and penalised three minutes for pushing in the team time trial. His Movistar teammate Alejandro Valverde was subsequently declared the race leader.
On Tuesday evening UCI race officials at the race decided that the French version of the rule concerning pushing in team time trials only punishes individual riders, while the English version of the rule indicated that the whole team should be punished.
After studying the case, the Commissaire's Panel came to conclusion that the whole team should be punished.
Get The Leadout Newsletter
The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!
