Russian cycling team Katusha on Monday pulled sprint specialist Alexey Tsatevich from the Giro d’Italia for breaking race rules by drafting behind another rider.
Tsatevich, 26, was initially fined and handed a time penalty for breaking UCI rules by shadowing Sweden’s Tobias Ludvigsson, of the Giant team, during the ninth stage time trial in the Chianti region on Sunday.
Drafting, or sitting close behind the back wheel of another rider, is illegal in time trials, because it allows the second rider to save precious energy.
Tsatevich was fined 100 Swiss francs (US$102) by UCI race commissaires, and picked up a time penalty of nearly seven minutes for his “failure to respect regulation distances and gaps between riders.”
However, Katusha went one step further by taking the Russian off the race altogether.
Katusha sporting director Dmitry Konyshev apologized for Tsatevich’s “behavior” and said that it was “absolutely unacceptable.”
“His behavior has negative impact on the image of cycling in general and Team Katusha in particular,” he said.
Despite his absence leaving the team one support rider short to help overall contender Ilnur Zakarin in the final two weeks, Konyshev said: “Accepting the commissaires penalty was not enough for us. We had to take more severe measures.”
“It is not easy to enter the second week of the race with just eight riders, but I believe we’ve made the right decision,” he added.
Italy’s Gianluca Brambilla retained the race leader’s pink jersey by just one second after Sunday’s scenic race against the clock, won by Slovenian Primoz Roglic.
Italy’s Vincenzo Nibali, the 2013 champion who was thrown off last year’s Tour of Spain for holding onto a team car, is the favorite for overall victory in Turin on May 29.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but