Remco Evenepoel and some of his Soudal-QuickStep team mates were among a number of riders who used a helicopter to get off the top of Gran Sasso quickly after yesterday's Giro stage to the summit of the mountain. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the other riders had to queue for ski lifts or got stuck in traffic.
And now the UCI is not happy with the situation, saying the fact helicopters are only available to a select few riders means they are gaining and unfair advantage over the others. The UCI is threatening sanctions.
Related News
The UCI said the use of helicopters on the Giro yesterday “constitutes an advantage that goes against the principles of fair play regulatory provisions for ensuring equal treatment for transfer of teams to their hotels”.
Using helicopters was also against the “principle of carbon footprint reduction”. The UCI added it would “take necessary measures and sanctions to ensure that such a practice does not occur in the future”.
Advertisement
Evenepoel and his team mates used a helicopter supplied by Giro owners, RCS, and it appears Bahrain Victorious and Bora-hansgrohe also used the race organisers' chopper, apparently paying to do so. Being transfered by helicopter enabled the riders get off the mountain and arrive at their hotels a couple of hours before riders who got off the Gran Sasso by cable car and then had to drive to hotels.
Other Grand Tours have also laid on choppers for the best-placed riders overall at times. Back in 2012, for example, we did the story at this link about Nicolas Roche, Chris Froome and Alberto Contador getting a lift on a chopper for a transfer at La Vuelta that year.
