Benoît Cosnefroy and Lewis Askey were both well beaten for victory today at the finish of stage 2 of Tour du Limousin-Périgord-Nouvelle Aquitaine (2.1) but their clash at the end of the race was perhaps the main talking point.
Luca Mozzato (Team Arkéa Samsic) took a deserved win but when Cosnefroy (AG2R Citroën Team) almost crashed into the barriers, and clearly felt Askey (Groupama-FDJ) was to blame for that incident, the French rider did not hold back at the finish.
As they crossed the line Cosnefroy - who has the climbers' jersey and is 2nd overall - took his right hand off the bars and grabbed the back of Askey's jersey, slapping his hand down on the British rider in the process.
He then tugged on Askey's jersey before pushing him away, all as the duo had just crossed the line at high speed. It looked like Askey hadn't done too much wrong, though Cosnefroy very nearly hit the barriers after the British rider took a strong approach to holding his position in the road.
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While the commissaires may have been justified in relegating either of them, the result stood, which was probably the right outcome. Askey took 2nd and Cosnefroy 3rd, helping him close the gap to race leader Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) by four seconds to 19 seconds.
Askey said afterwards he had gone to see Cosnefroy following the race, explaining they had "shaken hands" and there was "no bad blood". One amusing part of the incident is the commentary in the video below, with one half of the commentary team apparently blind to what Askey might have done wrong, though we had Philippa Yorke bringing a bit of reality to the proceedings.
