🎥 Worse than a sticky bottle: Riders caught holding onto team car at Tour de Guadeloupe

Getting away with serious cheating in the professional peloton has become incredibly difficult. Cameras are everywhere during races, whether mounted on motorbikes or filming from the air. It can be easier at smaller events, which is why some truly bizarre incidents occasionally emerge. Thanks to spectators filming at the roadside, several riders at the Tour de Guadeloupe did not get away with it this time.

The Tour de Guadeloupe has been held since 1979 and is a stage race in the French overseas department. Well-known riders such as Francisco Mancebo and Ludovic Turpin have previously won on the Caribbean island, while current professionals Clément Braz Afonso, Tom Donnenwirth and Sam Maisonobe have all finished on the podium. Colombians Flober Peña and Daniel Bernal are the race’s record winners, with four overall victories each.

The race once again features no fewer than ten stages this year, with the fourth stage taking place on Tuesday. Victory went to Johan Meens, who spent the previous four seasons with the now-defunct Bingoal WB team. The Belgian delivered a win for Continental team AARCO, but another incident from earlier in the stage attracted most of the attention.

Footage taken by a fan along the roadside showed two riders being towed along by a team car. Nicholas Narraway of Competitive Edge Cycling was holding onto his own team vehicle, while Jason Jacquet Cretides of Uni Sport Lamentinois was hanging on at the other side. This was no ordinary sticky bottle: both riders were gripping an open window as the car travelled at considerable speed.

The commissaires were inevitably forced to intervene and removed Narraway from the race. He was disqualified, fined 100 Swiss francs and docked 25 UCI points. Cretides had not reached the finish that day, meaning there was no need to disqualify him from the stage race. However, he received the same fine and UCI points penalty.

Sports director Christopher Drummond, who was driving the vehicle, was barred from travelling in the race convoy the following day and was also fined. He will be permitted to return after stage five, but his car must start at the very back of the convoy in every remaining stage.

This isn’t the first incident at the Tour de Guadeloupe. Dutch riders Niels Tenniglo and Huub van Kapel were removed from the race in 2025 after deciding to sit out a lap on a local circuit before rejoining the peloton. Their team, GRC Van Arckel, later apologised for the riders’ behaviour.