Simon Yates has weighed into the debate around the legality of Arnaud Démare's win at Milan-Sanremo, saying the Frenchman's data is perhaps not as unusual as it looks (Photo: Sirotti)
Having been accused of taking a tow from his team car to win Milan-Sanremo after a crash with about 30km remaining, Arnaud Démare and his FDJ tean have insisted he did nothing wrong.
Italian riders Matteo Tosatto (Tinkoff) and Eros Capechi (Astana) both claimed after the race the Frenchman had taken a tow on to the Cipressa climb.
Capechi claimed the eventual winner passed him on the climb at 80kmph.
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And when Démare’s Strava filed appeared to be published, unpublished and then reappeared showing he had climbed the ascent faster than anyone else in the race, the claims of towing took on a life of their own.
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His Strava data also revealed a maximum speed on the hill of 52.2kmph, which appeared unusually high.
However, British rider Simon Yates pointed out on Twitter than his own maximum speed on the hill was 2kmph faster than Démare’s when he was in the cars.
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Yates rides for Orica-GreenEdge, the same team as pre race favourite Michael Matthews, who came down in the same crash as Démare but could only manage to briefly get to the back of the depleted peloton before drifting back again.
In the face of his biggest win being so publicly questioned, Démare has defended himself in an interview with French sports newspaper l’Equipe.
“I’ve done nothing wrong, there are judges in cycling,” he said. “If I had done something forbidden, I would have been disqualified.”
He said he had battled back on in the same way as Matthews, who was injured and bleeding after the crash, unlike Démare.
“He rode like me in the line of cars. It’s always been part of cycling,” the French victor added.
“We benefit from the slipstream of cars. We are sheltered from the wind there. It is not forbidden.”
But he insisted he did not hold onto the car; his directeur sportif Frédéric Guesdon echoing those words and suggesting some of the Italians were jealous that a French rider had won their classic.
“He asked for a bottle and it was the mechanic who passed it to him,” he said of Démare’s spell in the cars while chasing back on.
“But he did not hold onto (the bottle). I don’t see how that is possible when there were cars around us and there was a motorbike commissaire. We were never alone on the Cipressa.”
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